Alive after 15 days, and eating
Source: Agencies |
January 29, 2010, Friday
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Print Edition
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A 16-YEAR-OLD girl pulled from the rubble in a stunning rescue 15 days after the earthquake was in stable condition yesterday, able to eat yogurt and mashed vegetables to the surprise of doctors, who said her survival was medically inexplicable.
Wednesday's rescue of teenager Darlene Etienne from a collapsed home near St Gerard University, 15 days after Haiti's great quake killed an estimated 200,000 people, was the first such recovery since Saturday, when French rescuers extricated a man from the ruins of a hotel grocery store. A man pulled on Tuesday from the rubble of a downtown store said he had been trapped during an aftershock, not in the original January 12 quake.
Etienne is stable and has a 90 percent chance of survival, said Dr Evelyne Lambert, who has been treating the girl on the French Navy hospital ship Sirocco, anchored off shore from Port-au-Prince.
"We cannot really explain this because that's just (against) biological facts," Lambert told a news conference. "We are very surprised by the fact that she's alive."
Authorities say it is rare for anyone to survive more than 72 hours without water. But Etienne may have had some access to water from a bathroom of the wrecked house, and rescuers said she mumbled something about having a little Coca-Cola with her.
Her family said Etienne had just begun studies at St Gerard when the disaster struck, trapping dozens in the rubble of school buildings, hostels and nearby homes. "We thought she was dead," said cousin Jocelyn A St Jules.
Wednesday's rescue of teenager Darlene Etienne from a collapsed home near St Gerard University, 15 days after Haiti's great quake killed an estimated 200,000 people, was the first such recovery since Saturday, when French rescuers extricated a man from the ruins of a hotel grocery store. A man pulled on Tuesday from the rubble of a downtown store said he had been trapped during an aftershock, not in the original January 12 quake.
Etienne is stable and has a 90 percent chance of survival, said Dr Evelyne Lambert, who has been treating the girl on the French Navy hospital ship Sirocco, anchored off shore from Port-au-Prince.
"We cannot really explain this because that's just (against) biological facts," Lambert told a news conference. "We are very surprised by the fact that she's alive."
Authorities say it is rare for anyone to survive more than 72 hours without water. But Etienne may have had some access to water from a bathroom of the wrecked house, and rescuers said she mumbled something about having a little Coca-Cola with her.
Her family said Etienne had just begun studies at St Gerard when the disaster struck, trapping dozens in the rubble of school buildings, hostels and nearby homes. "We thought she was dead," said cousin Jocelyn A St Jules.
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