- Joined
- Dec 8, 2003
- Messages
- 21,465
- Reaction score
- 0
JORDAN HEATH-RAWLINGS
STAFF REPORTER
Roy Lamanna couldn't hear the roar of the deadly tsunami waves approaching the beach on Thailand's Phi Phi island where he was vacationing.
But the deaf Toronto teacher saw the wall of water coming in and was gripped, watching as the drama unfolded around him.
Unable to hear the shouts and warnings, it wasn't until people began running and the wave was almost upon him that he realized the danger.
Lamanna, 35, a teacher at two Toronto schools for the deaf, was standing on the sand Dec. 26 when, "I went to look off the shore and I saw the water was rising and rising and rising," he said with help from a translator.
"It was like a wall. It just kept coming and coming and I realized, `My Gosh, it's coming right toward me.'"
As the first of the waves caught up to him and carried him inland at a ferocious pace, it was all he could do to avoid the trees he was speeding past, caught in the deadly tide.
He ended up on a small hilltop with dozens of others, awaiting rescue. It was two hours before a helicopter located them, and another eight before helicopters and boats could get all the survivors off the tiny plot of land.
Awaiting rescue, he said, "a lot of people fell off the hill. Many ... were just washed away."
Eventually he returned, by boat, to Kabri, Thailand, and found a small hotel with several surviving vacationers clustered around a television set.
"I began to realize — I hadn't realized before that — how lucky I was compared to other people ... to escape with such minor injuries," he said.
Though he had survived, Lamanna faced another problem — how to let friends and family know he was okay.
"I'm a deaf person, I can't phone anybody, and I was thinking, `What am I going to do?'"
His first thought was to find someone from a Canadian embassy, but he was unable to use a phone and, in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, officials on the ground were in short supply. It wasn't until the evening of Dec. 28, when he found a friendly local couple with remote e-mail access, that he was able to get word to Toronto.
He arrived home on New Year's Eve to find his colleague, Gary Malkowski, already petitioning government officials for "an effective emergency communication system for individuals who are deaf," in the wake of his experience.
When the disaster cut him off from friends and family, and all means of support, it was the Thai people who stepped up to help, Lamanna said.
"They were suffering because they lost their families, but they ... helped us Canadians quite a bit, when I didn't feel any help at all from our government."
STAFF REPORTER
Roy Lamanna couldn't hear the roar of the deadly tsunami waves approaching the beach on Thailand's Phi Phi island where he was vacationing.
But the deaf Toronto teacher saw the wall of water coming in and was gripped, watching as the drama unfolded around him.
Unable to hear the shouts and warnings, it wasn't until people began running and the wave was almost upon him that he realized the danger.
Lamanna, 35, a teacher at two Toronto schools for the deaf, was standing on the sand Dec. 26 when, "I went to look off the shore and I saw the water was rising and rising and rising," he said with help from a translator.
"It was like a wall. It just kept coming and coming and I realized, `My Gosh, it's coming right toward me.'"
As the first of the waves caught up to him and carried him inland at a ferocious pace, it was all he could do to avoid the trees he was speeding past, caught in the deadly tide.
He ended up on a small hilltop with dozens of others, awaiting rescue. It was two hours before a helicopter located them, and another eight before helicopters and boats could get all the survivors off the tiny plot of land.
Awaiting rescue, he said, "a lot of people fell off the hill. Many ... were just washed away."
Eventually he returned, by boat, to Kabri, Thailand, and found a small hotel with several surviving vacationers clustered around a television set.
"I began to realize — I hadn't realized before that — how lucky I was compared to other people ... to escape with such minor injuries," he said.
Though he had survived, Lamanna faced another problem — how to let friends and family know he was okay.
"I'm a deaf person, I can't phone anybody, and I was thinking, `What am I going to do?'"
His first thought was to find someone from a Canadian embassy, but he was unable to use a phone and, in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, officials on the ground were in short supply. It wasn't until the evening of Dec. 28, when he found a friendly local couple with remote e-mail access, that he was able to get word to Toronto.
He arrived home on New Year's Eve to find his colleague, Gary Malkowski, already petitioning government officials for "an effective emergency communication system for individuals who are deaf," in the wake of his experience.
When the disaster cut him off from friends and family, and all means of support, it was the Thai people who stepped up to help, Lamanna said.
"They were suffering because they lost their families, but they ... helped us Canadians quite a bit, when I didn't feel any help at all from our government."
