(28 Sep 2017) Amid the endless tragedies in the 7.1-magnitude quake that killed 337 people, there are incredible stories of survival.
Speaking to survivors in hospital Wednesday, stories of desperate attempts to escape the buildings crumbling around them are colored by terror, pain, and the thrill of having been pulled from the jaws of death.
Vazquez Martinez was on the roof of the four-story lab building where he worked when the quake hit.
"One day we were talking with a friend of mine at that branch, and we said, the day there is a problem here (at the building where he worked) we'll jump," said Vazquez Martinez, as he lay in his bed at the Magdalena de las Salinas hospital, recovering from a broken hip and leg. "Well I did."
But Vazquez Martinez never let go of the branch, and it proved his life line. He fell through the lower branch and onto the sidewalk in front of a neighboring building, breaking his hip and leg. But there, a second miracle happened: a metal balcony grill fell on top of him, partly shielding him from the direct impact of tons of rubble that fell on top of him and buried him.
The tree branch, which he still gripped in one hand, poked out of the rubble to give him a trickle of air.
His face, mouth and nose full of rubble, Vazquez Martinez noticed that a jug of water he had on the roof had fallen nearby. "the jug of water that I had with me in my office, my water bottle was there with me really crushed
He called and whistled, and eventually co-workers found him and dug him out.
Dr. Fryda Medina, the director of the hospital operated by Mexico's Social Security Institute, said that on the day of the quake, patients were brought in by volunteers in private cars and taxis.
Two patients were brought in aboard buses; the staff, retirees and former residents all volunteered to stay on through the night and following days, when over 300 wounded from the earthquake were brought in; only one died.
There were other incredible escapes from death. American photojournalist Wesley Bocxe and his wife Elizabeth made it to the roof of his ten-story apartment building when the quake started; his wife was killed when the floors underneath pancaked underneath them, but Bocxe somehow survived the plunge, though he was seriously injured.
Local media quoted one woman who said that she and two relatives took refuge in the bathroom of their upper floor apartment, and the room _ apparently constructed more sturdily than the rest of the building _ plunged intact to near street level, and they were able to escape with the help of neighbors.
For a family of four from the Iztapalapa neighborhood on the city's gritty east side, the quake was so nightmarish that the family's father briefly lost it.
The family asked not to be identified by name for privacy reasons.
They rushed out of their home with their nine-year-old daughter and 13-year-old son when the quake started, only to have a six-foot (two meter) perimeter wall fall on the children. The girl's pelvis was crushed, her liver damaged and she had internal bleeding. The son had an exposed fracture of his leg, with the bone poking though and blood spurting out.
The mother helped her son, who was crawling, to get to the street, and she walked into traffic to stop a car.
Once they got to the hospital, policemen station outside saw the girl's condition and quickly offered to summon a helicopter, which ferried both children to the Magdalena de la Salinas hospital.
Find out more about AP Archive: [ Ссылка ]
Twitter: [ Ссылка ]
Facebook: [ Ссылка ]
Instagram: [ Ссылка ]
You can license this story through AP Archive: [ Ссылка ]
