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- [00:01]
Host of Real Survival Stories
Hi listeners. Some of you may know that in addition to Short History of, I also host another podcast on the Noiser Network. It's called Real Survival Stories. And each week on Real Survival Stories, we meet ordinary people who are thrown into extraordinary situations. People who are suddenly forced to fight for their lives. I love doing the show because it transports us right into the heart of incredible stories in amazing locations, whether high up in the mountains or far out at sea, in the desert, underground, or even in one episode, deep inside an iceberg. And the people we get to interview on the show are genuinely astonishing. I'm blown away every week by the power of the human spirit and by how they managed to get out of these situations. So today we wanted to bring you a Taster episode to see if we can tempt you to add real survival stories to your weekly roster. If you enjoy this taster, follow Real Survival Stories wherever you get your shows for new episodes each Thursday. Thanks for listening.
- [01:05]
Narrator
It's 7:58am on December 26, 2004. Eighteen miles beneath the floor of the Indian Ocean, two tectonic plates grind and scrape. Over the centuries, the pressure along this fault line has grown. Periodically that pressure becomes too great, forcing a sudden dramatic rupture. As one plate slides beneath the other, the earth's crust is thrust violently upward. Lifting approximately 65ft. It spreads at a speed of 2 kilometers a second, ripping a fault in the seabed that extends for a thousand miles. It's all over within 13 minutes. A short, sharp flash of seismic activity. But way up on the surface, the consequences of this earthquake will be far reaching and devastating. The first tremors are felt in the towns that line the west coast of Sumatra. Deep vibrations that send people running from their homes. But these shockwaves are merely a prelude. When the ocean floor lifted, it displaced billions of tons of water above it, creating a tsunami.
- [02:40]
Pete Etheridge
I had no idea of what had happened. I didn't notice a tsunami. I didn't know what the world was coming to an end. For some reason, I've got no idea.
- [02:50]
Narrator
It begins as a barely noticeable ripple in the deep ocean. But as the waves hurtle towards the shore, traveling at the speed of a jetliner, it gains volume and velocity. Upon reaching the shallow coastal water, the drag created by the seabed slows the wave down, but also causes the crest to dramatically rise. Forming walls over 50 meters tall are.
- [03:19]
Pat Etheridge
Twisted round to the right and there's a wall of black coming. Instead of the view of the sea.
- [03:24]
Narrator
Through the trees, waves radiate from the epicenter of the Earthquake striking the nearest landmass, Sumatra, at 7:59 local time. To the north and west, the waves continue to surge across the ocean, making catastrophic landfall in Thailand, Singapore, India, the Maldives, and in Sri Lanka, where Pete and Pat Etheridge are on holiday.
- [03:53]
Pat Etheridge
And then, of course, then it steadied itself. And at that point, I realized that I am trapped and that is how I will die.
- [04:10]
Narrator
Ever wondered what you would do when disaster strikes if your life depended on your next decision? Could you make the right choice? Welcome to Real Survival stories. These are the astonishing tales of ordinary people thrown into extraordinary situations. People suddenly forced to fight for their lives. In this episode, we meet Pete and Pat Etheridge, a married couple in their late 50s. In 2004, while backpacking around Sri Lanka, they decide to spend some time relaxing at a holiday resort on the country's beautiful southern coast. But then, on the morning of December 26, their tranquil getaway becomes a terrifying fight against one of the most destructive forces in all of nature.
- [05:00]
Pete Etheridge
There was nothing we could do at all. We were just at the mercy of this huge surge of water and we.
- [05:06]
Narrator
Just got slammed up the beach to one apart. Pete and Pat will face their own individual battles for survival before they can even begin to find their way back to each other.
- [05:18]
Pat Etheridge
I just could not believe anyone could survive. I could not see that Pete could have survived.
- [05:26]
Narrator
I'm John Hopkins from Noiser. This is Real survival stories. It's December 2004, in the Central Province of Sri Lanka. An English couple step off a train and onto the crowded platform. With their backpacks bobbing on their shoulders, Pete and Pat e weave their way through the humidity and the hub. Emerald green hills rise sharply beyond the station, their terraced slopes cultivated with tea plantations. In the blue skies overhead, parakeets circle. Pete and Pat have no idea where they're going, which is exactly how they like it. They've been traveling around Sri Lanka for the past two weeks with no guidebooks, no organized tours and no hotel bookings. Just their rucksacks and each other. 56 year old Pete Etheridge grew up on a council estate in Surrey, England. He left school without qualifications and began an apprenticeship with a local plumber. By the age of 20, Pete's life was already mapped out for him. But then along came Pat.
- [07:10]
Pete Etheridge
The really big turning point in my life was actually meeting Pat. She changed my life dramatically. All of a sudden, I found a real soulmate.
- [07:21]
Pat Etheridge
Our daughter says the reason that we get on so well is because we ignore each other. That's quite funny, but yeah, we're just there for each other. We accept each other as we are, make space for each other and try and help each other become what we want to be.
- [07:37]
Narrator
For all they have in common, their upbringings couldn't have been more different. While Pete barely traveled beyond southern England, Pat's father was a pilot. Visiting exotic, far flung destinations formed a major part of her childhood.
- [07:53]
Pat Etheridge
Yeah, we used to go everywhere. I remember very clearly at the age of four or five, going to Bermuda for a holiday now, we didn't realize how privileged we were. I just was amazed at the colour and the fish and the water and all the magical things that everybody takes for granted more these days.
- [08:10]
Narrator
For Pete, meeting Pat opened new horizons. Young and newly married, the adventurous pair started taking trips together. Greece, Turkey, Afghanistan, India. Eventually, they settled back in the uk, raising two children and embarking on careers as teachers. But their passion for travel never waned and there was still so much of the world left to see.
- [08:37]
Pete Etheridge
Once the sort of kids were old enough for us to start traveling again, Then the Rux X came out. We thought India was still on our mind, wanted to get back there, but we decided that Sri Lanka was going to be a good, scaled down version of India. Sounded like a really nice place. So we thought, well, let's try it. Let's go to Sri Lanka.
- [09:02]
Narrator
Two weeks into their backpacking trip around Sri Lanka and it's just like old times for the Etheridges. Pete and Pat may not be in their 20s anymore, but their wanderlust is undimmed. They've thrown themselves into the local culture, going wherever impulse takes them.
- [09:20]
Pat Etheridge
We don't follow lots of guides, we just potter about, go to markets, all that sort of thing, and keep it very simple, decide when we get somewhere, which direction we'll go and how we'll do it, within whatever budget we do or don't have.
- [09:39]
Narrator
One thing they almost never do is stay still. They like to keep moving, to keep finding new experiences and adventures. But on this occasion, maybe a bit of downtime wouldn't go amiss.
- [09:53]
Pete Etheridge
We decided that we would do something we've never done before, and that's actually to relax. We don't go on holiday. We've never really been on a holiday.
- [10:03]
Narrator
And so, following a local taxi driver's recommendation, Pete and Pat find themselves on Sri Lanka's idyllic southern coast at a holiday resort called Ganesh Gardens.
- [10:16]
Pete Etheridge
It was about 4 km, 34 km out of town. Very quiet, very peaceful. Coconut groves, mangroves at the back of us, nice beach, empty. And they had One little sort of bungalow there set back a week a bit and we thought, that'll do, that'll do. We can relax.
- [10:43]
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Narrator
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- [11:18]
Pete Etheridge
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- [11:22]
Pete Etheridge
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- [11:25]
Narrator
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Advertiser
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- [11:34]
Narrator
You detail. It's eight on December 26th. The Etheridges have been unwinding at Ganesh Gardens for four days. Pat sips her coffee in the hotel restaurant, a book open on her lap. Across from where she's sitting, a low brick wall separates the hotel dining area from the beach. Beyond a row of coconut trees, the Indian Ocean glitters brightly in the sun. When Pete arrives, he suggests they have their breakfast on the beach. The Etheridges take their coffees and relocate to a shady spot beneath the palms. It's a warm, still morning with barely a trace of wind.
- [12:23]
Pete Etheridge
The sun is out, the sky is blue, so is the sea. Just thinking, oh, can life get any better than this? It's quiet and lovely. Then it started to kick off in a very, very strange way. It wasn't a wave. The water just surged. It sort of surged up towards us and it was just odd. It was just very odd. Not frightening or anything. It was just odd.
- [12:51]
Narrator
Pete and Pat jump to their feet as seawater rushes around their ankles. They look at each other, bemused, but not afraid. The receding tide is dragging some tables and chairs back towards the ocean, so they start grabbing hold of the furniture. But as they're doing so, the tide sweeps back up the beach. This time it's risen almost as high as their knees and it seems to be gaining strength.
- [13:23]
Pete Etheridge
As it started to recede, it was trying to drag us out as well. It was a very, very powerful surge back out to sea. And so we Dropped the tables and chairs and we tried to sort of clamber our way back up the beach through this water. And as we were doing that, the third surge came in and I mean that hit us quite hard. There was nothing we could do at all. We were just at the mercy of this huge surge of water and we just got slammed up the beach.
- [13:56]
Narrator
The force of the water knocks Pete off his feet. The next thing he knows is being washed through the hotel dining area, bumping and tumbling over walls and furniture. In the melee, he looks around frantically for Pat.
- [14:12]
Pete Etheridge
As I was going through there, I noticed that Pat was being wedged into a wall by quite a large table. And it was just, it was around her midriff. This is what I saw. Snap, you know, within a second or so I could see that she was in trouble. I got washed over a wall and then it just sort of eased back down again.
- [14:38]
Narrator
The surge briefly calms long enough for Pete to regain his footing. Immediately he tries to get to Pat. He staggers back towards the restaurant, up to his knees in water. He spots her across the dining area, the ocean foaming and frothing around her waist. But before Pete can call out to her, he's hit.
- [15:03]
Pete Etheridge
I think I got within, I don't know, maybe six foot. The last thing I knew was I noticed the blouse, the color of the blouse she was wearing. I have no recollection after that. I didn't see it, I didn't hear it, I didn't feel it. I have no recollection whatsoever.
- [15:21]
Pat Etheridge
I twisted round to the right and there's a wall of black coming instead of the view of the sea through the trees. And on the front of it is a body, I think it was Pete picked up and was doing these spirals at high speed. Just in that second like that, I saw him like this, you know, and really fast.
- [15:41]
Narrator
She watches in horror as the wave carries Pete out of sight. The three surges, it seems, were mere warning shots, a prelude to what comes next. Pat is stuck, wedged against the brick wall by a heavy wooden table and by the immense force of the waist deep water inundating the shoreline. Then another massive wave comes thundering through the trees.
- [16:11]
Pat Etheridge
And at the very top of it, I remember the sun and the light on the. As you'll see, but below it was this. It was as tall as the palm trees, so about 35 foot wall of water just about to hit me.
- [16:27]
Narrator
Acting fast, Pat is just able to fully turn her body around and until she's facing inland, her back to the oncoming tower of water. In the split second before it hits, she manages to take a breath.
- [16:46]
Pat Etheridge
When it hit me, I just went forwards. If. If it had hit me when I was twisted, it would have broken my back, I would imagine, but it would have just wrenched me apart. But because I just was able to fold, didn't do my ribs any good, didn't do any of me any good. But in a way, I was safe being stuck there because I didn't go hurtling through the cottages and everything.
- [17:09]
Narrator
Pat is submerged beneath 30ft of rushing water. As the ocean engulfs the land, she opens her eyes to a chaos of swirling silt, sand and debris all hurtling past in the murky brown torrent. The left side of her body is still held firmly beneath the wall on the table. Her right half is exposed, flailing like a flag in a hurricane. Her limbs extended to breaking point.
- [17:40]
Pat Etheridge
Sort of whiplash of the. Every joint you could think of. I remember looking at my arm, leg on the right, and thinking, I really shouldn't be in that direction. And then, of course, then it steadied itself. And at that point I realized that I am trapped, and that is how I will die.
- [17:59]
Narrator
Pat doesn't struggle. She doesn't try to free herself. The force keeping her in place is too strong. Instead, she draws on her years of experience as a science teacher to calmly assess the situation.
- [18:15]
Pat Etheridge
I started to consider, it's all very scientific, I think. I started to consider, well, I won't drown, but I will asphyxiate. There's no way I could be drowning down here because I can't breathe in any way. I only have a limited time of oxygen. So then I thought, okay, but I've got, you know, glycogen in my muscles. I've got all sorts. So my body will be retrieving all that now in this situation.
- [18:46]
Narrator
But even as she keeps her mind calm, her body is suffering terribly. Soon, Pat's senses begin to warp, distort, and shut down.
- [18:58]
Pat Etheridge
And then slowly, I started to lose color. And everything became black and white, just like a cartoon of some sort. I have no capability of perceiving color. And then I was having thoughts like, ah, right. Oh, so that's it then. End of life.
- [19:18]
Narrator
Around path, the greenish brown murk seems to turn gray like a reel of black and white film. Losing perception of color is a common side effect of hypoxemia, the dangerous lowering of blood oxygen levels. Pat begins to experience strange hallucinations. Images swirl about her in the water.
- [19:42]
Pat Etheridge
Suddenly in front of me, it's just like Alice in Wonderland playing cards. I could see these white cards floating about in front of me, but not disappearing from me. I realized suddenly that I was moving and they were moving and it was these white painted bricks.
- [20:03]
Narrator
From the corner of the wall, it suddenly becomes clear. The wall has finally given way under the pressure. She's free. Pat looks up. Shafts of green light filter down through the gloom, pointing the way to the surface. She starts kicking her legs and thrashing her arms, pushing herself higher and higher.
- [20:30]
Pat Etheridge
And so I realized I was going up, so I realized I didn't have much time. I'm strong, so I just tried to get to the light.
- [20:49]
Narrator
Elsewhere. Pete opens his eyes. He appears to be floating in space, drifting through a vast, murky void. Bubbles streak past his eyeline. It takes a few moments for him to register what is happening.
- [21:08]
Pete Etheridge
My next experience was waking up a long way underwater, which is the most surreal experience. I just woke up in sort of great patterns of light. I don't know how far I was underwater. It felt a bloody long way. Thinking I'm not quite sure how I got here and what happened, but I don't think I'm going to survive.
- [21:32]
Narrator
Ribbons of sunlight refract on the surface, threading down like needles. It seems only a matter of time before he'll pass out again and drown. But then all of a sudden, he finds himself caught in a powerful updraft and he is sent rushing towards the surface.
- [21:52]
Pete Etheridge
I managed to get a breath and then because of the turbulence of the water, it just sucked me back down in this time into blackness because the water had really sort of kicked up the silt. So basically I was just in black blackness, tumbling about. It did feel like you were in a washing machine full of bricks.
- [22:16]
Narrator
Pete is flung about like a rag doll, chewed up and spat out again by the raging torrent. He collides with sharp, jagged objects, bricks and beams and sheets of corrugated metal. The detritus of buildings reduced to rubble. He lets his body fall limp as he awaits the inevitable.
- [22:41]
Pete Etheridge
There was an acceptance. There was. I didn't say it was a relief. I'd rather be alive. I don't actually want to die, you know, but there's this feeling just going, yeah, this is not a bad way, because all I was going to do was maybe my body would run out of oxygen and I'd just close my eyes and that's it, just drift away. But I suppose the.
- [23:09]
Pat Etheridge
I can't.
- [23:10]
Pete Etheridge
I like life. I think life is absolutely beautiful, just everything about it. I wanted to see more of it. So the survival bit really sort of kicks in. And I found I needed some sort of buoyancy. And I found myself grabbing leaves, twigs, anything.
- [23:30]
Narrator
Pete feels the rough scraping of bark against his skin as he's washed into a thicket of trees. He begins clasping at the branches, using them to drag himself up towards the sunlit surface before eventually his head breaks the waterline. Pete sucks air into his lungs. He takes in his surroundings and is suddenly struck by the sheer scale of what has happened. All he can see is ocean. Were it not for the few trees poking up through the water, he would assume he'd been washed out to sea.
- [24:15]
Pete Etheridge
And it was total silence. It was absolute, deafening silence. There was no noise whatsoever. And I had the feeling that I was the only person left alive. I couldn't see anybody living through what I'd just been through. And of course, then comes into your mind, I've just lost Pat. You know, there's no way Pat could survive what I've just been through.
- [24:42]
Narrator
Believing his wife is almost certainly gone. Somehow Pete has to find a way to compose himself, to keep battling on.
- [24:51]
Pete Etheridge
I realized that I had to cut Pat out of my mind. I couldn't worry about Pat. I had to worry about myself. I have to survive. That kicks in. It's me. It's purely me. There's nothing I can do about Pat at all. She's, you know, lost, gone. I might have to worry about that later, but in this point of time, it's going to be down to me.
- [25:24]
Narrator
A few kilometers up the flooded shoreline, Pat reaches the surface with one final kick. She takes a few steadying breaths and takes in the scene surrounding her.
- [25:38]
Pat Etheridge
I look round and there was no land at all. There were some stronger trees a bit further to the east, but other than that, it was all water. It was all moving at this deadly speed, and it was a foul color, very, very turbid, just gruesome. And I suddenly realized I needed to look where I'm going.
- [26:00]
Narrator
Pat is being swept along with the flood. As she hurtles forwards, she has to maneuver around treetops and telephone poles, obstacles that appear out of nowhere, looming suddenly through the muddy water. At the speed she's moving, a direct impact would be fatal. It feels as if she is caught in the rapids of a raging river. In fact, she's been carried on the crest of a massive wave, a seismic ocean swell that has engulfed this entire coastline and is now sweeping inland. And sooner or later, even the largest waves must break. Suddenly, the sensation of floating is Replaced by the feeling of falling. As the wave collapses beneath her, Pat is sent plummeting downwards towards trees and solid ground.
- [26:57]
Pat Etheridge
Once it broke, because then the whole wave is breaking, so it's going like that. So what happens? I hit the tree and then the whole wave breaks over the lagoon and the mangroves. And I remember hitting the ground. I was like a huge falling somersault.
- [27:15]
Narrator
The impact knocks Pat senseless. She momentarily blacks out, coming to just as the water scoops her up again. She's carried another indeterminate distance before the next wave breaks, slamming her into the ground with another sickening thud.
- [27:36]
Pat Etheridge
After that, I don't know what's happening because I'm obviously. How could you stay conscious in that situation? I was just battered into unconsciousness.
- [27:53]
Narrator
Pat rolls in the water like a piece of driftwood. Gradually, her world goes dark and the roar of the water recedes to a whisper. Then in the darkness, she seems to hear a voice, something from her past.
- [28:12]
Pat Etheridge
My memory is throwing out advice to me and in the most annoying manner, like this very bossy person started to tell me something and I was going, don't tell you no, I can't do anything. I said, pat, Pat, remember when you're in Costa Rica, remember what they told you when you went whitewater rafting in the safety, if you get thrown out of the raft, you must relax. You cross your arms across your chest and you go with the water. And water always goes to a quiet place. Might take a while, but it will. So you just don't struggle, you protect your chest, you relax and you will be fine. That voice was my voice being terribly clever cogs knowing everything and being so clever and being about 12 and I needed to be listened to and she wouldn't let me get away without it.
- [29:12]
Narrator
And Pat does listen, using this memory to her advantage. Heeding the advice of her 12 year old self, drifting in and out of lucidity, she crosses her arms over her chest and lets the water take her to a quiet place.
- [29:35]
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- [30:03]
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- [30:21]
Narrator
Pete clings onto a branch as the deluge thunders around him. He's been savagely torn apart by the waves. In the chaos, his clothes have been ripped away. Naked, holding on for dear life, he looks down and checks himself for injuries.
- [30:42]
Pete Etheridge
My arm had been opened right up from actually my wrist to my elbow and it was like an open anatomy picture. I could see everything. I could see bone, tendons, ligaments, and I'm just looking at thinking, strange thing, why doesn't that hurt? Why isn't that hurting? It should absolutely be screaming at me, but it's not.
- [31:04]
Narrator
Anaesthetised by adrenaline, Pete lifts his head and scans his surroundings. It's clear that the water is pushing inland. He can tell from the density of the vegetation to the north that that is where he needs to go. You can't actually see land, though. The inundation stretches on for miles. This idyllic coastline strewn with fishing villages, thatched cottages and hotels, is all gone, consumed by the sea. Pete starts looking for a route through the dense wall of foliage. Eventually, he spots an opening.
- [31:52]
Pete Etheridge
I found this gap. Only problem with this gap was that it was either this thorn bush had been swept into the gap or it was a thorn tree and I had to get through it. And that was very seriously uncomfortable. I mean, I was trying to drag my way through this when you haven't got any clothes on, everything, you know.
- [32:12]
Narrator
I felt like a bloody pincushion, scratched and bleeding. Pete slogs on, swimming from branch to branch, treetop to treetop. Finally, the flow of the water starts to settle, allowing him to guide himself through the brackish swamp. The undergrowth becomes thicker, more stable underfoot, the further he gets inland. And eventually, Pete's feet meets solid ground. He collapses, lying face down in a tangle of saturated mangrove roots.
- [32:52]
Pete Etheridge
And I remember sort of laying there. I got concussion, apparently. Both my shoulders have been dislocated. I've got various broken ribs, my back and my body has been lacerated, you know, covered in cuts. My arm, my foot and my leg is in a terrible state. I mean, really was in a bad state.
- [33:12]
Narrator
Pete lies there, his battered body rising and falling with each breath. After several minutes, he hears a voice calling out in a language he doesn't understand. He feels himself being gently nudged with a foot. Somebody's checked to see if he's still alive. Gingerly, Pete lifts His head squinting into the blinding sunshine. A Sri Lankan man is bending over him, trying to communicate something. Pete stares back, uncomprehending. Then he sees the fear in the man's eyes.
- [33:54]
Pete Etheridge
He started to shout at me. He said, you must climb a tree. You must climb a tree. Because I'm white. I think he realized maybe I spoke English. And he's telling me, you must climb again. You must climb. You must climb a tree. You must climb a tree. And I didn't understand what he was going on about. Then I was aware of this roar in the sort of background and he kept saying, it's coming again, it's coming again.
- [34:20]
Narrator
The sound is grimly recognizable. A sinister far off rumble accompanied by the crash of falling trees. Slowly he turns his head. There in the distance is a gray wall of water advancing rapidly inland. He can see the debris tumbling in the froth. Smashed boats, rooftops with TV aerials still attached, cars, fences and bicycles. A wave of exhaustion washes over Pete. He doesn't have the energy to stand, let alone climb a tree. He simply closes his eyes, hangs his head and braces himself. It is mid morning. Pat sits motionless, slumped against a tree in a flooded garden. She is unconscious. One eyelid is badly swollen, bloody and bruised. Her other eyelid suddenly twitches.
- [35:37]
Pat Etheridge
As I came to, I realized that the water had indeed taken me to a quiet place. There was water around and I'm just lying there. So I very carefully, hardly believing I was there, scraped my arm, my right arm down my side to touch the ground beneath me with the tip of my thumb. I remember. And as I did that, coming off my thigh and then touched the ground, I realized the water was only 2 inches deep and completely calm.
- [36:09]
Narrator
With her one good eye, Pat glances around. Everything along this coastline is flattened as far as you can see. Hardly a building is left standing. Piles of wood and rubble protrude from the shallow floodwater. Pat assumes she's the only person left alive.
- [36:32]
Pat Etheridge
I just could not believe anyone could survive. So to have survived was actually unbelievable anyway. So I could not see that Pete could have survived. And I just didn't have the capacity to do anything except focus on my own survival.
- [36:53]
Narrator
Pat winces in pain as she shifts herself into the recovery position. She feels like she might throw up and she doesn't want to risk blacking out and choking on her own. Sick. Lying on her side, Pat groans and cries out, trying to make herself heard. After a while she hears the squelch of approaching feet. She looks up and finds herself staring into the kindly face of a stranger, a local man who starts helping in whatever way he can.
- [37:29]
Pat Etheridge
And then along, along comes this lovely man who looks after me. He'd come looking for foreigners who would not have anyone to help them. They wouldn't have any relatives or anything around the family. So he saw me and because I was so worried about Pete, he had great compassion and he started to take control of the situation.
- [37:55]
Narrator
The next few hours are a blur. In a semi cogent state, Pat is loaded into a tuk tuk and driven down winding country lanes. At the hospital, there's a vague flurry of gurneys, bright strip lights, and nurses in white uniforms. That night, a surgeon operates on her eye. He removes gravel and silt from a wound before reattaching the eyelid and stitching everything up. The following day, Pat is transferred to a different hospital. And then another. Every ward, every waiting room, every available inch is filled with the injured. More arrive every hour as the post tsunami recovery efforts continue along the coastline. Hooked up to an IV drip and heavily dosed on painkillers and antibiotics, Pat desperately scans the faces of the patients being wheeled past her in the corridors, a seemingly endless stream. But not one of them is who she's looking for. Not one of them is Pete. Two days later, Pat finds herself at Apollo Hospital in Sri Lanka's capital, Colombo. She checks constantly at the front desk, looking for any sign of her husband.
- [39:19]
Pat Etheridge
So I was still trying to find, always being on the phone, so I'd be talking to the person who had people coming in, checking all the time to see if any more European men had come in.
- [39:34]
Narrator
But the answer is always the same. And as the days pass, Pat struggles to cling onto hope. That she managed to survive is remarkable enough. That Pete could have made it through as well seems like one miracle too far. Then on Wednesday, three days after the tsunami, Pat receives a visitor, an English woman named Nikki who lives in Colombo. She enters Pat's bright, clean room and introduces herself.
- [40:09]
Pat Etheridge
So there I am in the midst of whatever's going on, and this lovely woman, Nikki, arrives. And she said, I think I may have found your husband.
- [40:22]
Narrator
A couple of days prior, Nikki explains, she was watching a CNN news report interviewing tsunami survivors.
- [40:30]
Pat Etheridge
In it, there was a short piece about a man in a hospital in Colombo who was looking terrible and was saying that his wife was lost. She couldn't understand how I could have survived. And so she decided then she would help this one man and that would be her commitment. Until he was found.
- [40:55]
Narrator
On the other side of the city, Pete lies on a Rickety hospital bed, LED strip. Lights flicker and hum. Flies buzz around his face. His pallid gray skin glistens with sweat. Flashes of pain shoot through his feverish body, radiating along his bandaged arms and legs. For Pete, the past 72 hours have been an utter whirlwind. The last wave he saw surging his way never reached him. Fortunately, he'd already made it far enough inland. He lay in that spot for several hours before two elderly women found him and dragged him to a safer spot by a road. Pete sat there naked and alone, utterly helpless beneath the blazing sun.
- [41:50]
Pete Etheridge
Never did you who I was, where I was. You're in a state where you're in a foreign country. You have no language. I have no passport. I have no money. I have no friends. I have no wife. I have no clothes. Everything has been taken away from me. Everything. And I felt like I'd been held underwater while six blokes with baseball bats had been beating me.
- [42:15]
Narrator
But eventually, Pete was picked up by a passing car and driven to a small village hospital where a doctor stitched his lacerated arm back together.
- [42:27]
Pete Etheridge
And they got what I'd still think was Baylor twine. And they stitched me up with that. No anesthetics, no painkillers, nothing. And I can still feel to this day my flesh being pulled together as they were. Put these bloody stitches in with Pete.
- [42:44]
Narrator
Was then transferred multiple times, eventually ending up at an overcrowded, overburdened hospital in Colombo, where he now lies recuperating every step of the way. He's been searching for Pat, to no avail.
- [42:59]
Pete Etheridge
You sort of raise your hopes, but they get dashed every so often. And every time I get to a place and ask, you know, is there a. Is there an English lady here gave a description, name of Pat, what have you. And say no, and you know, your heart sinks again.
- [43:17]
Narrator
Upon his arrival in Colombo, Pete was interviewed by a CNN reporter. He told his story and gave a description of Pat on the off chance that she was still alive and that somebody might know where she was. Sometime after that, an English woman arrived at Pete's bedside. Nikki.
- [43:38]
Pete Etheridge
She said, look, I heard your story. She said, you brought me to tears. I just had to come in, give me a description of Pat, and if she's alive, we'll find her. And then she left.
- [43:52]
Narrator
Now it's Friday. Pete has lost all sense of time. But at some point, Nicky returns to his hospital ward. She tells him she thinks she's found Pat and she's got a car waiting outside to take him to her. Nicky helps Pete out of bed and into a wheelchair. She wheels him out to the street, where she and the driver lift him into the backseat and set off for the Apollo Hospital. When they get there, Pete is taken up to an empty room while Nicky goes off.
- [44:27]
Pete Etheridge
So I'm wheeled into this small room and there's an empty bed there. No Pat, you know. Oh, well, they tried, I guess. So I'm there for, I don't know, five or 10 minutes. And then the gurney turns up with Pat on it. But it wasn't my Pat. It was another English lady called Pat. And she wasn't too happy with me. She shouted and said, what are you doing here? Where's my husband?
- [44:58]
Narrator
Was this all just a tragic misunderstanding? But then the door swings open this time.
- [45:11]
Pete Etheridge
Eventually, Pat turned up my Pat. So there was a huge sort of, you know, tears spilled. How the bloody hell did both of us come out of that? I've got no idea.
- [45:26]
Pat Etheridge
Just a very, very intense, you know, a sense of impossibility. I remember when I first gave birth to my daughter, our daughter, and it was the impossibility of it that overwhelmed me. And this was another impossible.
- [45:50]
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- [46:20]
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- [46:50]
Narrator
After a few days stabilizing Pete's health at the Apollo, the Etheridges fly back to England. There they embark on a long process of physical and psychological rehabilitation. A significant part of that recovery is dealing with survivors guilt.
- [47:10]
Pete Etheridge
There's a guilty part inside me that 33,000 people down that coastline lost their lives. And they were people that had a very hard life anyway, you know, they were living just to survive. They had Nothing. Those people lost families. They lost husbands, they lost wives, they lost their kids, they lost their jobs, they lost their dwellings. They lost a lot. I mean, seriously, they didn't have a lot in the first place. We came out of it and we really hadn't lost anything. We've lost material possessions that we had that got lost away, but that's nothing. We still have our lives, we still have each other. We came back to England, we still have a house, we have a family, we still have our jobs. And I'm going, sometimes it's not fair. You know, it's really not fair.
- [48:04]
Narrator
The 2004 tsunami was the deadliest in recorded history. Around 230,000 lives were lost across a dozen different countries. Indonesia, Thailand, India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives all sustained billions of dollars worth of damage with entire towns demolished and over 2 million people displaced. One year after the disaster, Pat and Pete return to Sri Lanka to assist with the relief efforts. What they find is a country desperately struggling to get back on its feet. With hundreds of thousands still living in refugee camps and millions mourning the loss of family, friends and livelihoods. All they can do is give back in whatever way they can and try to repay the kindness of all the doctors, nurses and civilians who help them.
- [49:03]
Pat Etheridge
What enabled me to survive? Well, actually, it's nothing to do with me. It was other people, ordinary people who in a time of tremendous stress and terror for themselves, did make that gesture, did make sure that this was done or that was done in turn out of compassion and love.
- [49:29]
Narrator
Reflecting on that day 20 years ago, Pete and Pat both recognized how astonishingly fortunate they were not just to survive, but to find each other again. The day they were torn apart ultimately brought them closer together.
- [49:45]
Pete Etheridge
I think you have to be very lucky in life to get the right person. You know, I think it works both ways, but we just, I don't know, we just were made for each other. We've been married over 50 years now, and our friendship and bond is as close as it's ever been. It's just remarkable.
- [50:19]
Host of Real Survival Stories
Next time on real survival stories, we venture deep into the Australian outback following 19 year old Will Chaffee as he spends two long months battling to stay alive. After trekking through desert, plains and ancient jungle on the hunt for a mysterious serpent, Will's plans start falling apart. Out of supplies, deep in the wilderness, and with the weather and the wildlife against him, he must find a way to stave off starvation without becoming food himself. That's next time on REAL SURVIVAL stories. Hi, listeners. I hope you enjoyed this taster episode of Real Survival Stories. You can catch me on the show every week. Just find and follow Real Survival Stories in your podcast app. Short History of On Mondays Real Survival Stories on Thursdays. Why not give it a go.