Mainer aboard ferry escapes from disaster

loading...

Rob Wilson, 31, was lucky to escape with his life when two massive tsunamis crashed Sunday morning into the southern Thai province where he had been vacationing.

When the waves hit, Wilson, a Troy native, was on a ferry heading to the Ko Phi Phi Islands, a popular tourist destination.

“We were at the right place at the right time, within minutes of being overturned,” Wilson wrote in an e-mail about his experience with the giant waves. “The shelter of the island actually took the brunt of the force, sparing us.”

Passengers on another ferry that had reached the island a few minutes earlier, before the waves struck, disembarked to disaster, according to Agence France Presse reports.

About 200 tourists leaving that ferry were washed away by one of the tidal waves.

Wilson was able to place a cell phone call to his family in Maine by 8 a.m. Sunday EST to reassure them that he was safe.

“I just wish he could get out of there,” his mother, Margery Irvine of Blue Hill, said Monday morning. “I understand they’re evacuating tourists today.”

Wilson was stuck on the ferry in front of the Ko Phi Phi Islands for seven hours, waiting as a mixture of ominous rumor, grisly fact and disturbing debris reached the boat.

“We saw boats floating by, speedboats overturned in the trees at Phi Phi, trees and rubbish in the water, which got heavier and heavier as time went on,” Wilson wrote.

The ferry then began picking up bloodied survivors from other boats. Wilson said that he and two German tourists administered first aid to one man who was bleeding from lacerations and puncture wounds all over his feet and ankles.

When the ferry returned to the mainland, Wilson was horrified when he learned that the tsunami had destroyed entire ports and beaches, leaving thousands of dead in its wake.

Through “complete mayhem,” Wilson caught a ride back to the city of Ao Nong in an ambulance. The staff of the hotel where he had stayed the night before was shocked that he was still alive.

“‘You so lucky, you so lucky,’ they kept saying,” Wilson wrote. “They had heard that the boat I was on had been one of the boats to overturn.”

On Monday, Wilson was trying to make his way back to Bangkok and then to Hong Kong, where he has been teaching English, his parents said.

“He’s a pretty adventurous type, but I think that this was just a lot more than he could ever have bargained for,” Irvine said.

Others in Maine also were worried about the tidal waves.

Maine Central Institute staff and students in Pittsfield had some anxious hours Monday as they awaited news on the well-being of two Thai students who went home for the holidays.

It wasn’t until late Monday afternoon that Clint Williams, director of admissions, announced that the boy and girl were safe in Bangkok. A third Thai student had stayed behind with a Pittsfield family, and his Thai family members also were safe, Williams said.

Williams and Tom Bertrand, MCI director of residential life, were working the phones Sunday and Monday, trying in vain to reach the educational consultants in Thailand with whom the school deals.

Bertrand said MCI has students from 25 countries enrolled this year, but only two are in any of the nine countries struck by the disaster. “Really, at this point, it is only the two kids we’re worrying about,” Bertrand said early Monday.

Known by their Americanized nicknames, “Top” and “Eve,” the students were excited to be going home for the holidays after four months away from their families. In a visit to a Pittsfield home just a few days before leaving, Top asked many questions about how Maine families would be spending the holidays and said that he was most looking forward to eating genuine Thai food when he returned home.

Mireille Le Gal of the University of Maine Office of International Programs on Monday morning e-mailed the 44 exchange students from India, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Indonesia to ask if they were affected by the tsunamis.

“So far I’ve only heard good reports from eight students that all were safe,” she said Monday afternoon.

Red Cross officials said Monday that the American National Red Cross would deploy some staff overseas and was accepting contributions for the South Asia Tsunami Appeal Fund.

“We’ve had a couple of calls from people locally who want to donate goods,” said Suzanne McCormick, CEO of American Red Cross of Southern Maine. “But cash donations are really best.”

Relief agencies are concerned about water contamination, sanitation and the threat of disease.

“I can tell you that in the past when there was flooding in India, cholera was a major issue,” the official said.

NEWS reporter Sharon Mack contributed to this report.