Lucky to be alive.

[BANGKOK RED]

Couldn't register on here yesterday for some reason, so I have just copied and pasted what i put in the other site:


Boxing day morning my wife and I were fast asleep in our hotel room, on the ground floor of the Seagull Inn resort, Patong Beach road, Phuket, the next we found ourselves tredding water in that same room, breathing from an air pocket created in the room by the tidal wave that hit us with full force thinking "This is it". Fortunately, and miraculously the waved died down enough for us to scramble to the roof of the building before the next wave came in. Just how lucky I am to be typing this now is beyond words, and it is amazing that my wife came through un-scathed and all I had to endure was a night in hospital with a few broken ribs. No words can describe the terror of that day and images and sounds of that of that day shall be etched into my mind for the rest of my life: such as: the desperate screams of people in full fear of their lives, the site of the water rising against the hotel window before the glass eventually broke causing our room to become part of the ocean, corpses floating in the sea, cars and buses being thrown around like toys. One of the hardest thigs of the whole experience was at Phuket airport returning home, even a person with the coldest heart would have been deeply affected by all of the "missing" posters placed around the airport, hundreds of them: young Children, husbands, wife's even people looking for their entire familys that they have not seen since that day. When I was in the hospital I commented to an American guy in the bed next to me that the construction work outside seemed very innapropriate, only for him to inform me that the construction work was in fact the construction of the hundreds of coffins needed to carry away the dead, and the stench upon me leaving the hospital is also something that I shall never be able to forget.

We all live for experiences and stories to tell at the pub pass down through the family, but this is a story that I wish I never had to tell. I beleive that my wife and I will never be quite the same after that day, and the depth of my sorrow for all of the "un-lucky" ones is at times over-powering, but as so many of my friends and family tell me, I should be thankful that I am still alive and try to continue as I am: shaken, battered and bruised but otherwise OK.

[Anonymous]

The scenes we're getting on television in England are extremely moving, but I suspect they do not compare with experience such tragedy first hand.  Undoubtedly it is something which would change a person's perspective on life, but will also probably make you appreciate life even more.

I don't mean to be insensitive, but the one aspect of the treatment of the disaster I don't understand is the lining up of bodies for identification.  Surely this is merely encouraging the spread of disease and it would be better for all parties involved if the bodies were just burnt?  The bodies are left to decompose and seeing a loved-one like that would not be an appropriate way to remember them.

[sonicyouth]

Fiisch, knob off.

I saw you in the Daily Express today BR!

[Anonymous]

Fiisch, knob off.

Don't see the need for that tbh.  I was making a perfectly valid point I felt.  Realise it could be viewed as insensitive but please read it in the tone it was intended.  100 people with unknown identity die, or 200 die but identity known.  Which is the lesser of the two evils?

[sonicyouth]

It's about as valid as your existence and equally uninformed, now piss off.

[Whits]

glad to hear your safe BR

[Anonymous]

It's about as valid as your existence and equally uninformed, now piss off.

Don't make statements you can't back up.  The fact you've slurred this thread with filth and by taking an argumentative tone is embarrassing.  Keep it on topic, or start a new thread taking the mickey.