Speaker 1: We'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land
Speaker 1: on which this podcast was produced, the Gaigle people of
Speaker 1: the orination. We pay our respects to Elder's past.
Speaker 2: In present, It's Boxing Day two thousand and four and
Speaker 2: Rebecca Giles is relaxing in her beachside bungalow on Thailand's
Speaker 2: Pp Island. After a busy year of work, she's escaped
Speaker 2: to the picture perfect spot for.
Speaker 3: A last minute holiday.
Speaker 2: She's relaxing on her bed reading a magazine when she
Speaker 2: begins to hear.
Speaker 3: A rumbling sound.
Speaker 2: Then suddenly her room explodes and disintegrates around her. Rebecca
Speaker 2: is swept away in a fizzing round wave full of debris.
Speaker 2: Just as she's thinking this is the end and pictures
Speaker 2: of her family members fill her mind, the surge of
Speaker 2: water throws her onto the roof of a nearby hotel.
Speaker 2: As the water begins to subside, and Rebeka tries to
Speaker 2: get her her bearings, her surroundings looked nothing like the
Speaker 2: idyllic island she was relaxing on just moments ago. She
Speaker 2: doesn't realize it now, but she's just lived through the
Speaker 2: deadliest tsunami.
Speaker 3: In modern history. I'm Att Middleton and this is head
Speaker 3: Game Today.
Speaker 2: Rebecca Giles on surviving one of the biggest natural disasters
Speaker 2: of our time. Rebecca Giles, it's an absolute pleasure to
Speaker 2: have you here on my podcast head Game. Talk to
Speaker 2: me about when you decided, like, do you know what
Speaker 2: I just need to get away?
Speaker 3: I need to break? Was a conversation that you had
Speaker 3: with your boyfriend.
Speaker 1: Yeah, very last minute. I just had the you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, just had the hugest year and really just
Speaker 1: needed to sit on a beach and just unwind before
Speaker 1: I was going into a trial. So before I put
Speaker 1: the I just need to just put the tools down
Speaker 1: for a moment before I picked them up again for
Speaker 1: a big year again. And we just thought we'd just
Speaker 1: nip over to Thailand, don't have a great break, and
Speaker 1: come back with a good tan.
Speaker 2: So but you you recognized at that time that it
Speaker 2: was well needed, right, You've got a big year ahead
Speaker 2: of you. So it took me through the trip. You
Speaker 2: you you've got your passports. Are you excited at the
Speaker 2: at the airport? Is it just yeah?
Speaker 1: Look, the funny thing is that yeah, oh, very well.
Speaker 1: My partner and I were discussing where we should go,
Speaker 1: and we're just I mean, you know what it's like
Speaker 1: when you pick a holiday, just look at the map.
Speaker 1: And he'd actually never been to Pp Island. I'd been
Speaker 1: there many years ago, and I recommended. I said, look
Speaker 1: this is go to Thailand. It's idyllic, it's beautiful. Trust
Speaker 1: me on this. So we just made, honestly a last
Speaker 1: minute plan and we were there sort of in a
Speaker 1: couple of days.
Speaker 3: So you get to Pp Island, are you really relaxing
Speaker 3: into it? You fun?
Speaker 1: It was fun, Like you know, it's very rare for
Speaker 1: me to be away from my family for Christmas as well.
Speaker 1: But you know that the particular resort we were staying
Speaker 1: at had all these sort of compulsory gala dinners and whatever,
Speaker 1: and there were lots of entirely there's a lot of
Speaker 1: drag queens that they had a drag show and it
Speaker 1: was all very festive, and you know, it was nice.
Speaker 1: It was like a really you know, evident sort of
Speaker 1: joy in the air because it was Christmas and everyone
Speaker 1: was happy and laughing and there was a great dinner
Speaker 1: the night before and yeah, it was It's a beautiful island.
Speaker 3: So everything felt right.
Speaker 2: Nothing that felt you know, some people say, before an
Speaker 2: instant happens, you know there's something you know there was.
Speaker 1: I did not have a sixth sense. And if that's what,
Speaker 1: if that's what you're implying, No, I don't think I'm
Speaker 1: that intuitive. I just maybe if all the signs were there,
Speaker 1: but I didn't notice any.
Speaker 3: Take me back if you can.
Speaker 2: You waking up and it was yeah, because I think
Speaker 2: people don't realize how your life can be flipped upside
Speaker 2: down in an instant.
Speaker 1: I mean, I often do think about that day because
Speaker 1: I often go back to it because I'm scared of
Speaker 1: not remembering it and not remembering what happened. It's you know,
Speaker 1: we woke up and we had a really big buffet breakfast,
Speaker 1: and I remember just feeling like I had really overdone it,
Speaker 1: and I remember I had to go and lie down
Speaker 1: because I had a bit of a saw tummy. So
Speaker 1: I went back to our room, and you know, I
Speaker 1: remember seeing a couple of the drag queens not in
Speaker 1: drag with a bit of smear makeup, and we all
Speaker 1: had a little laugh and some people we saw at
Speaker 1: breakfast from the night before. You know what it's like
Speaker 1: when you're in a resort and I went back to
Speaker 1: my room and was reading a magazine and my partner
Speaker 1: had gone to return a DVD we'd watched the night before.
Speaker 1: I was supposed to clean up the room and I
Speaker 1: was I didn't do that, and I remember him just
Speaker 1: coming in the door and thinking, you know, the panic
Speaker 1: when you're supposed to have done something you haven't done it.
Speaker 1: And then at around that time, I heard quite a commotion, which,
Speaker 1: you know, like a you know, and I idyllic island
Speaker 1: setting is a bit of a weird noise. You know,
Speaker 1: there's no cars on this island or anything like that,
Speaker 1: so you don't ever have the noise of traffic. And
Speaker 1: it was commotion, but not scary commotion, just commotion, people
Speaker 1: making noise, no screaming or anything. And I remember just
Speaker 1: observing it.
Speaker 3: Just something out of the norm, right, Yeah, there.
Speaker 1: Was something out of the option. Something I just noticed
Speaker 1: the noise and I didn't I wasn't alarmed or panicked
Speaker 1: at all. And I can't even remember whether my partner
Speaker 1: said anything to me, but I just observed it. And
Speaker 1: then it was like, you know, I can see the
Speaker 1: movies about tsunamis and things like that, and you see
Speaker 1: water creep you know, water filling up and things like that.
Speaker 1: That was not my experience at all. I was inside
Speaker 1: a structure and it was a weatherboard bungalow, and for me,
Speaker 1: it was like a bomb went off because it was
Speaker 1: so so sudden, so violent, and everything disintegrated on impact.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't like water either, So it wasn't like
Speaker 1: I was, you know, surfing away or anything like that,
Speaker 1: or even felt the sensation of water. It felt like
Speaker 1: a bomb had exploded. And then I was in something
Speaker 1: like it didn't feel I didn't feel the soothing, you know,
Speaker 1: feeling of water at all. It was like I was
Speaker 1: being crushed. I often describe it like being in an
Speaker 1: industrial blender, like if I'd fallen into some sort of
Speaker 1: blender and I was just being pulverized really, because it
Speaker 1: was quite I mean, I didn't feel any pain at
Speaker 1: all during this, but it was very, very confusing. It
Speaker 1: was a sensation I'd never felt before. I didn't understand.
Speaker 3: Last fought before it happened. Do you remember just looking
Speaker 3: around in it just I Do.
Speaker 1: You remember seeing the wall to the right of me
Speaker 1: collapsing and then the air conditioning coming down on me?
Speaker 1: But that was in a microsecond, like not slow motion
Speaker 1: or you know, and no life flashing before my eyes,
Speaker 1: like it was micro second too quick.
Speaker 2: Right, So you're there, Well, I'm enjoying life, no warning
Speaker 2: signs and commotion going on. You literally go from one
Speaker 2: gaze to the next, and the whole place is disintegrating
Speaker 2: around you and you're being crushed.
Speaker 1: I mean, when you think about the room, the small
Speaker 1: room we're in right now, if that was to disintegrate
Speaker 1: in a second, you know, I mean, I know how
Speaker 1: fortunate I was not to be hit on the head.
Speaker 1: And I think that that is how many people died
Speaker 1: that day. They lost consciousness, they were knocked out, and
Speaker 1: they drowned, whereas I was awake and with it the
Speaker 1: whole time and was able to I mean, I didn't
Speaker 1: actually do anything to save myself, but at least I
Speaker 1: closed my mouth and went with whatever was happening to me.
Speaker 1: And you know, I think that a lot of people
Speaker 1: died in more robust structures because they didn't collapse. But
Speaker 1: I was very lucky that the strength of the water
Speaker 1: destroyed the building and it didn't trap me within the building.
Speaker 1: But I was able to move with everything. I moved
Speaker 1: with the wave, so at the time, I just you know,
Speaker 1: the narrative, the internal narrative is really interesting, right, Like
Speaker 1: obviously the first reaction is what the fuck is is?
Speaker 1: You know, immediately it's shocked, like what what? What?
Speaker 3: What?
Speaker 1: And then and then it turns to naturally, okay, really
Speaker 1: what is this and trying to understand from a sensory
Speaker 1: perspective what the hell it was. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: tsunami is something that is in a vernacula now very
Speaker 1: much so, but back then it wasn't at all. I'd
Speaker 1: remember it from like, you know, Asian cartoons and like,
Speaker 1: you know, I knew what the word meant, but maybe
Speaker 1: title wave was probably something, but I never even thought
Speaker 1: it was water related at all. So I was trying
Speaker 1: to understand. I thought maybe a truck had sort of
Speaker 1: crushed album, and there's no trucks on the island. I
Speaker 1: just couldn't. I was going through all the things.
Speaker 3: It could be, trying to figure out what was.
Speaker 1: And I was just sort of eliminating things in my head,
Speaker 1: just really logically rationally trying to work out what had
Speaker 1: happened to me. But the point is I was being
Speaker 1: moved at such a force and such a speed that
Speaker 1: I had no control over any of any part of
Speaker 1: my body. It was so fun like there was no
Speaker 1: chance I could even move my right arm.
Speaker 3: Just you were just stuck. I was just going.
Speaker 1: I was head over feet over, you know, like being
Speaker 1: spun through through with a lot of debris, like a
Speaker 1: wall of debris. Basically, when did.
Speaker 2: You realize that you were in water? When was that realization?
Speaker 1: Not until I was out of the water. Actually wow,
Speaker 1: you know, but I did know that. I actually thought
Speaker 1: maybe it was mud. I thought maybe there'd been a landslide,
Speaker 1: is what I concluded ultimately in my you know, rational
Speaker 1: elimination of possible causes. But it didn't feel like water
Speaker 1: at all. You know, I've always had a great relationship
Speaker 1: with the water and felt that I could be you know,
Speaker 1: but I it didn't feel that way. And in fact,
Speaker 1: you know, when I was ultimately propelled out of the
Speaker 1: water by a force that I don't really understand, it
Speaker 1: wasn't you know, blue beautiful you know, tie beach water.
Speaker 1: It was thick, dark, brown, stinky water that was a
Speaker 1: soup of like debris, luggage, people, trees, window frames. You know.
Speaker 1: It reminded me of the local tip actually wow. And
Speaker 1: the smell was just you know, it was an overwhelming,
Speaker 1: very noticeable smell immediately. Yeah, So it didn't feel like
Speaker 1: you know, I've seen a lot of them movies, and
Speaker 1: it just just what it looked like and how it's
Speaker 1: been recreated wasn't wasn't really my experience. It was just
Speaker 1: it was a slurry really.
Speaker 2: And when you were trying to figure this out psychologically
Speaker 2: in your head, what is going on? What were the
Speaker 2: answers that you were getting? Can you remember some of
Speaker 2: your thoughts? Can? Yah?
Speaker 3: Of course? Of course.
Speaker 1: I mean, like I say, it was immediately shock, what
Speaker 1: is this? And then a more rational I turned to
Speaker 1: a more rational view of what are the potential causes?
Speaker 1: And then I really couldn't work it out. And I
Speaker 1: thought maybe a landslide or maybe a truck or something
Speaker 1: like that. And I just I also thought, because the
Speaker 1: bungalow I was in and I was on a foot
Speaker 1: on bed was very low to the ground, I had
Speaker 1: it in my head that maybe I was just really
Speaker 1: low of the ground and someone was going to just
Speaker 1: pull me out of whatever it was or just grab me.
Speaker 1: I had obviously no understanding that it was a global
Speaker 1: event and that you know, I was one of thousands
Speaker 1: affected on an island, and that one of many in
Speaker 1: the country and the region. I had no idea of
Speaker 1: how small I was in this incident.
Speaker 3: Do you think you're going to die?
Speaker 1: You know when it happened, Well, not at that point,
Speaker 1: not at that point. I mean at that point I
Speaker 1: was still, you know, going through the process of elimination.
Speaker 1: And then something in me moved on from that thought
Speaker 1: because I was like, Okay, that's very interesting because I
Speaker 1: can't actually do anything about whatever it is, and oh gee,
Speaker 1: my lungs are starting to hurt, and I might be
Speaker 1: in a bit of strife here. And then suddenly the
Speaker 1: realization of holy shit, this is actually a really bad,
Speaker 1: dangerous situation for me, and I could be looking at
Speaker 1: something quite scary.
Speaker 2: And then if you realize your lungs was obviously the
Speaker 2: pressure being crushed, when did you think?
Speaker 1: I remember just I remember just feeling feeling, feeling it
Speaker 1: in my chest, and then thinking I don't really have
Speaker 1: a lot of options here. I don't even know what
Speaker 1: this is. I'm in trouble. And then you know, the panic.
Speaker 1: It was really interesting, the wave of emotions and then
Speaker 1: the panic turned to sort of extreme sort of anger
Speaker 1: and sorrow, like it was sort of like no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no, I'm only twenty seven. This can't be like no,
Speaker 1: this is not the plan, right, And I just remember
Speaker 1: then immediately thinking it's so funny, like what you value,
Speaker 1: and remember thinking about my family and my niece who
Speaker 1: was only two at the time, and I didn't have
Speaker 1: kids at that time. I have many now, but you know,
Speaker 1: just feeling just extreme sorrow that I wouldn't see her again.
Speaker 1: And then I just wow, so this was going for
Speaker 1: and then oh yeah, and then suddenly I'm thinking, oh,
Speaker 1: that's right. I'm really scared of dying. I wonder if
Speaker 1: this is going to hurt. Just all these sort of crazy,
Speaker 1: crazy thoughts about you know, is it going to hurt?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: Am I going to go to hell? Probably? You know,
Speaker 1: all of these sort of things about I remember, you're
Speaker 1: supposed to do before you die, I should really be
Speaker 1: like and I was always sort of thoughts. And then
Speaker 1: I remember sort of almost wincing and bracing myself to
Speaker 1: prepare for that moment of death. And I didn't even
Speaker 1: know how I would die, because of course I didn't
Speaker 1: realize I was in water. But I just knew that
Speaker 1: I was in trouble, and it was almost at the
Speaker 1: moment where I kind of accepted my fate that I
Speaker 1: was propelled out of the water and I was. I remember,
Speaker 1: it's almost like you know when you're in a swimming
Speaker 1: pool and your dad throws you from one end to
Speaker 1: the other. That was the sort of force that I
Speaker 1: was because I remember being out of the water and
Speaker 1: I landed on a roof which was a hotel.
Speaker 3: So that's how high this is. And again you're thinking
Speaker 3: that you're on the ground.
Speaker 1: Yeah, someone was just going to pluck and then all of.
Speaker 2: A sudden, you're that high that you get thrown onto
Speaker 2: a rooftop, hotel rooftop.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean, And that's the thing, you know,
Speaker 1: you Like I said, I wasn't in pain, but from
Speaker 1: the moment it hit me to that point, you know,
Speaker 1: I had broken many bones. Didn't feel it at all.
Speaker 1: You know, I had gone from being in a structure
Speaker 1: to outsider structure. I had traveled significant distance as well,
Speaker 1: and I just had no concept of that at all
Speaker 1: because it was just a sheer force.
Speaker 3: You know, you didn't have time to look at your
Speaker 3: surroundings and.
Speaker 1: Go You had no bearings at all, no bearings at all,
Speaker 1: where I was, where I was going, what it was
Speaker 1: at all. And you know, one of the big real
Speaker 1: sort of life lessons that I learned from the whole
Speaker 1: experience is, you know how we as humans and people
Speaker 1: were just s like we had these tiny We're so fragile,
Speaker 1: you know, we're these little specs. You know, we had
Speaker 1: no match for sort of mother nature and you know,
Speaker 1: the anger of the ocean, and we're just really you know,
Speaker 1: we're very vulnerable. And you know, I was extremely lucky
Speaker 1: not to have passed out.
Speaker 2: So you get thrown up out of the water onto
Speaker 2: a rooftop. Is that when you realize actually, at.
Speaker 1: That time, I am my adrenaline had kicked in big
Speaker 1: time and I and I wasn't thinking rationally and I
Speaker 1: wasn't I wasn't in that same head, you know, mindset
Speaker 1: at all. It was a very serene It was like,
Speaker 1: you know, it was like having you know, taking mushrooms
Speaker 1: and then you're suddenly on this like where the hell,
Speaker 1: like what the what the heck is going on?
Speaker 3: You wanted to be on a rooftop, but not like this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I do like rooftop bars, but not this one.
Speaker 1: It was just very confusing and just smell a fizzing noise.
Speaker 1: It was a really strong fizzy noise, and all of
Speaker 1: those sorts of things. The heat of the sun. It
Speaker 1: was an incredibly hot day, and just being extremely confused,
Speaker 1: not really understanding. You know, if it was the tsunami
Speaker 1: in my head, maybe the water would be clear. I mean,
Speaker 1: this was whack water. It was like it was like
Speaker 1: the island had destroyed, was destroyed and had caved in
Speaker 1: and spontaneously combusted because all the structures, apart from the
Speaker 1: one I was on the top of, were no longer there.
Speaker 2: So you're there on the rooftop all this. You know,
Speaker 2: this sea of anger is going past you. When does
Speaker 2: it subside? When do you just do you just like think,
Speaker 2: why I've stopped moving. I'm just going to stay here
Speaker 2: until happens.
Speaker 1: I remember there was a man near me, and I
Speaker 1: remember being conscious of him. He had a lot of
Speaker 1: blood on him. And then there was another surge, like
Speaker 1: a very very strong surge that felt it must have
Speaker 1: been a second way, and then that came over the
Speaker 1: roof and I couldn't move at that point. By that time,
Speaker 1: I'd realized I could see my bone and my arm there,
Speaker 1: and I couldn't move my legs, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't think I can help myself here. Like I
Speaker 1: couldn't swim. I couldn't swim or hold on or you
Speaker 1: hear these amazing stories of people who saved their kids
Speaker 1: and did things. Not my story. You know. I was
Speaker 1: truly hopeless and helpless. And I remember thinking, Okay, well
Speaker 1: this is this is it probably for me because I
Speaker 1: just but the surge came and kind of sucked me
Speaker 1: next to the structure and there was I know from
Speaker 1: the water subsiding ultimately that there was just a huge
Speaker 1: mountain of debris that had built up against the side
Speaker 1: of this structure. And I got sort of wedged in
Speaker 1: between kind of near the utter and this mountain, and
Speaker 1: I had a little air pocket that I was able
Speaker 1: to sort of sit in, and I just remember feeling
Speaker 1: the weight of this mountain of debris just pressing against me, thinking,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I'm going to be crushed to death,
Speaker 1: or just never didn't feel none of it was like
Speaker 1: nice water, you know that you could navigate through or
Speaker 1: anything like that. It felt like it was very It
Speaker 1: felt like being in a tip that had water in it,
Speaker 1: you know, So the water did subside ultimately, and then
Speaker 1: the island sort of came alive again. You know, there
Speaker 1: was it was, you know, like something out of a
Speaker 1: horror movie.
Speaker 2: Really, So when it did subside, was there ever, and
Speaker 2: again just getting into your head, was there ever a
Speaker 2: sigh of relief going that's over now, but then having
Speaker 2: to deal with a whole new world of pain, which.
Speaker 3: Were your injuries.
Speaker 2: Was there moment where the water went where you could
Speaker 2: actually think and hear, and was there.
Speaker 3: A moment.
Speaker 1: One thing that was you know, I wasn't my normal
Speaker 1: self for that whole day from that moment really, of course,
Speaker 1: you know, I wasn't thinking rationally. I became very very quiet.
Speaker 1: I speak a lot, you know, normally m I probably
Speaker 1: would have said a handful of words that day. I
Speaker 1: I think it was because I recognized I was badly injured,
Speaker 1: and I I just felt I just went deep into myself.
Speaker 1: You know, I wasn't really I I was very conscious
Speaker 1: almost immediately of people running around, screaming, searching, and a
Speaker 1: lot of people saying there's gonna be another way, There's
Speaker 1: gonna be you know, people were running to the mountains
Speaker 1: and trying it. They were kind of evacuating the area,
Speaker 1: and I was, you know, unable to move. I'm steal
Speaker 1: in this mountain of debris, and I just remember just
Speaker 1: being unable to help myself or do anything for me.
Speaker 3: How did you get off the rooftop?
Speaker 2: Then?
Speaker 1: Now? Yeah, so some guys that I always describe them
Speaker 1: as backpackers, but I don't know why I would call
Speaker 1: them that. Maybe they had a backpack. It's just like
Speaker 1: they were just young guys. And they came by and
Speaker 1: they put me on a door that was in the
Speaker 1: mountain of the debris, climbed up it, and then kind
Speaker 1: of navigated me down. I remember like sliding off and
Speaker 1: this and that, and I kind of remember thinking this
Speaker 1: is almost comical, like it's you know, it's ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Like you must have been there for some some amount
Speaker 3: of time.
Speaker 2: And yeah, and I know that you can't free shake
Speaker 2: time because you know, the adrenaline is kicking in. You're
Speaker 2: going in and out of shock at one, but god,
Speaker 2: you must have been there for a while for the
Speaker 2: second wave to then hit and then for everything to subside,
Speaker 2: for people to actually go out, you know, or look
Speaker 2: around and have that that calavity of mine to go right.
Speaker 3: Actually, we need to start helping people, messing.
Speaker 1: What was amazing was the amount of people helping people,
Speaker 1: you know, instead of those instead of flying to the
Speaker 1: mountains out of fear of their own lives. You know,
Speaker 1: a lot of people were going from place to place
Speaker 1: and it was incredible, you know, to see the amount
Speaker 1: of sort of camaraderie. This girl needs help, come on,
Speaker 1: will come in to say. I mean, I don't even
Speaker 1: know if these people were doctors or what they were,
Speaker 1: but it was the instinct to assist was amazing. And
Speaker 1: my boyfriend at the time was you know, he had
Speaker 1: found me by this point, and so I think he
Speaker 1: might have directed a bit of traffic around me.
Speaker 3: I was going to ask about him, so.
Speaker 1: Yea yeah, and he sort of went the other way,
Speaker 1: but he was standing, so I think he was in
Speaker 1: a bit of a better position. And he was quite
Speaker 1: badly injured to his lower half of his body, but
Speaker 1: like quite deep lacerations to his legs and things like that.
Speaker 1: But I have no doubt he was directing traffic to
Speaker 1: get me to a safe place. And you know, I
Speaker 1: remember this brown, old brown door that I was on
Speaker 1: and they sort of used it as a stretcher. So
Speaker 1: they got me down ultimately, and then took me to
Speaker 1: the rooftop of a hotel called the Peppe Princess, and
Speaker 1: that was a rooftop that was a it was a bar,
Speaker 1: had a pool and sun loungers and I've since been
Speaker 1: back there and I see these people, you know, lying
Speaker 1: on these sun lounges, you know, looking like they're dead.
Speaker 1: But my experience was there were actually lots of dead
Speaker 1: people on that on that rooftop, and I was taken
Speaker 1: there and I was put on a sun lounger, and
Speaker 1: I just remember being feeling just really quiet, and I,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm really needle phobic and I always have been,
Speaker 1: and all I could think about was the fact that
Speaker 1: I probably would have to have a needle because of
Speaker 1: my injuries, and just sort of like you know, the
Speaker 1: funny things that you think of when like that's the
Speaker 1: least of my worries, really, like just crazy thoughts. And
Speaker 1: there was just a lot of activity around me. There
Speaker 1: was a lot of bodies being brought up to that area.
Speaker 3: Did you feel like you were in a dream or
Speaker 3: on out body? Except yeah, for sure, for sure. I
Speaker 3: can't imagine.
Speaker 1: It was a very surreal experience.
Speaker 2: I mean, for your injuries were really you didn't realize
Speaker 2: it at the time.
Speaker 1: But I didn't feel really, I didn't really feel pain.
Speaker 3: When did the pain kick in? When did you start
Speaker 3: to realize.
Speaker 1: I remember that towards the end of the day, I
Speaker 1: felt uncomfortable and I felt my Obviously, I had obviously
Speaker 1: had some bad internal bleeding in around my pelvis area,
Speaker 1: and I remember my stomach feeling quite large and rock hard,
Speaker 1: and I was just getting weaker and speaking less, and
Speaker 1: I think that I was just losing blood basically, So
Speaker 1: I just wasn't you know. I remember people coming to
Speaker 1: put alcohol on my I had quite a few, like
Speaker 1: large open wounds on my legs and my arms, putting
Speaker 1: you know, finding mini bars and putting alcohol in me.
Speaker 1: And I remember I remember the sun being just so
Speaker 1: hot that day, and I remember feeling so and really
Speaker 1: hurting my wounds. And so there was, you know, a
Speaker 1: beautiful man who's an amazing friend of mine, who held
Speaker 1: as wrong over me for a long time. It's total stranger.
Speaker 1: I lost his wife that day. You know, I had
Speaker 1: two little kids with him. A lot of people helped me,
Speaker 1: you know, And it's so funny, you know, us privileged Australians,
Speaker 1: we just sort of think, you know, we're entitled to
Speaker 1: the best of everything. And I remember thinking, oh, I
Speaker 1: think I even said to Damien, you know, I don't worry.
Speaker 1: Australian government will be here in like no time at all,
Speaker 1: you know, will be, will be, will be right, And
Speaker 1: that help never came, you know, And many, many hours passed,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't really till the late afternoon till a
Speaker 1: plane went overhead and it was a military plane to
Speaker 1: survey the island. And then not long after that, a
Speaker 1: helicopter apatche helicopter game often see you know on your
Speaker 1: s those helicopters, and I think you then you cannot
Speaker 1: pay me enough money to get one of those a game.
Speaker 2: So all during that time, ultimately you're in a in
Speaker 2: a not even a field hospital. You're you're you're in
Speaker 2: this rooftop bar. You're alcohol reverting back to to the
Speaker 2: old school techniques of just infection with alcohol and and
Speaker 2: just comforting.
Speaker 3: That's all they could do because everything was destroyed, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, A lot of people, a lot of people were
Speaker 1: trying to keep me awake.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what's your name?
Speaker 1: Where are you from? Yeah? That that's was And there
Speaker 1: was no form of communication. There's no people making phone
Speaker 1: calls or anything like that, and it was sort of
Speaker 1: you know, like we love going to these secluded feature
Speaker 1: resorts in these countries, but when something like that happens,
Speaker 1: you know, you really are isolated, very very far from
Speaker 1: you know, the eastern suburbs of Sydney.
Speaker 3: Your privileged life.
Speaker 2: Right when you're on this rooftop bar, you're being sort
Speaker 2: of treat in a way where you were just being
Speaker 2: made comfortable ultimately around you. You said that there was
Speaker 2: multiple individuals. Were they they are dead and alive or
Speaker 2: were they being being treated as well.
Speaker 1: I remember seeing a lot of dead bodies, and I
Speaker 1: don't believe i'd ever seen one before my life. It
Speaker 1: wasn't really horrific. These people looked like they were sleeping,
Speaker 1: and I think that that's because a lot of people
Speaker 1: just you know, were knocked on the head and drowned,
Speaker 1: and they just looked like they were a bit you know, broken,
Speaker 1: you know, a bit And they were just slowly bringing
Speaker 1: people up to that area and placing body is there.
Speaker 1: And I remember thinking times, I'm like, am I dead,
Speaker 1: you know, so a lot of like weird things going
Speaker 1: on in my head, of course, and then yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that there was a lot of that sort of
Speaker 1: area became a kind of centralized area because it was
Speaker 1: a little bit half the ground and people were coordinating
Speaker 1: care for other people. There were very few people who
Speaker 1: were really badly injured, you know. I mean, when you
Speaker 1: think about how many Australians are in Thailand over Christmas,
Speaker 1: I mean there's thousands. Only twenty Australians died in the tsunami,
Speaker 1: which is extraordinary. And my impression was you either you
Speaker 1: were really lucky and you were fine you died, But
Speaker 1: there were very few people around me who had bad
Speaker 1: injuries like me. And that may not be right. It's
Speaker 1: just in the area that I was, I didn't see
Speaker 1: that many. I know, there was an American woman who
Speaker 1: apparently I couldn't see her, I could hear her was
Speaker 1: quite badly injured, and she was the first person off
Speaker 1: the island and they winched her into the helicopter and
Speaker 1: I just remember thinking, I can't do that. There's no
Speaker 1: way I can be in one of those winch things.
Speaker 1: And there were a lot of people who were you know,
Speaker 1: really interesting, those people who you could tell were the
Speaker 1: natural leaders of coordinating care for people, and a lot
Speaker 1: of Australian, a lot of Australian voices in that as well,
Speaker 1: a lot of Australian accents. And at Apache, helicopter came
Speaker 1: and it landed in the water, in the shallow water,
Speaker 1: and there was a decision made to get me onto
Speaker 1: that helicopter. The helicopter was already quite full when it
Speaker 1: arrived at Pepe Island, and they put me back on
Speaker 1: my brown door and took me out into the water
Speaker 1: and placed me on the legs of quite a few
Speaker 1: people who were already seated into the helicopter. I think
Speaker 1: that would have been you know, five six pm, maybe
Speaker 1: even later. We'd been there all day really and you know,
Speaker 1: I know how you know, the idea that I was
Speaker 1: one of the first people off that island, You know,
Speaker 1: it's very sobering, you know, when you know you consider
Speaker 1: what ultimately happened to me in terms of infection, how
Speaker 1: lucky I was to get to medical care really really quickly.
Speaker 2: Did you realize on the rooftop before you rescue came,
Speaker 2: orfore help came, how badly injured you were?
Speaker 3: You said you looked at your arm.
Speaker 1: Well, I knew I could have been my legs, so
Speaker 1: I knew something bad had happened. I was very afraid.
Speaker 3: Of fractures from your legs.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean this, I had a very very deep
Speaker 1: wind here on my right upper leg and these were
Speaker 1: sort of there in my calf on my right so
Speaker 1: my left leg and my right leg. But I was
Speaker 1: more so, you know, the concern where I couldn't move,
Speaker 1: and I was you know, obviously I thought what that
Speaker 1: might be, and I didn't really want to think about
Speaker 1: that too much.
Speaker 3: In Spye, Yeah, you get put onto the helicopter.
Speaker 2: When do you realize, Rebecca, how serious your injuries are?
Speaker 3: Because you are not there?
Speaker 1: Not there forty operations, yeah, probably more, But.
Speaker 2: When do you realize, I would say, the extent of
Speaker 2: what you've just gone through, where you've just.
Speaker 3: Maybe six months later, oh really?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, I mean again, it was the sort
Speaker 1: of you know, you're in a state of shock, you
Speaker 1: don't really understand what's happening to you, and then you
Speaker 1: get the good stuff, the drugs, and you're off in
Speaker 1: another world and you don't really know what's happening, and
Speaker 1: it wasn't really until you know, mid the following year after,
Speaker 1: you know, my injuries really manifested themselves that all that
Speaker 1: urgent medical care was required. I mean the day I
Speaker 1: got off the helicopter and was taken by ambulance to
Speaker 1: a local hospital and I had surgery straight away, like immediately,
Speaker 1: almost within minutes of arriving.
Speaker 3: And did no one tell you how serious you know
Speaker 3: it was? It just a look.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a normal hospital admission. It wasn't like you know,
Speaker 1: sitting at the children's hospital and getting triaged, and you
Speaker 1: know I was, I was sort of fading by that point.
Speaker 1: And I was operated on immediately, an emergency, you know,
Speaker 1: no anesthetic. I had a laparotomy, and then once they
Speaker 1: identified the source of bleeding, I was packed, then taken
Speaker 1: up to theater and then anesthetized. And you know, but
Speaker 1: those people had to be overwhelmed with so many terribly
Speaker 1: injured people, and to just manage that the way that
Speaker 1: they did, I mean, it's incredible, you know they would
Speaker 1: you know, these hospitals, these local hospitals are set up
Speaker 1: for you know, tourists who have upset tummies and dehydrated.
Speaker 1: Right there was a red dis injuries. They were incredible.
Speaker 1: I mean I got plenty of I got the last
Speaker 1: lot of blood they had available.
Speaker 2: And when did normality and you know, inverted kind of
Speaker 2: normality sort of kicking? When did you was it each
Speaker 2: day that you went through was it? Was it calming
Speaker 2: down more and more because two hundred and thirty thousand
Speaker 2: people plus died on that day.
Speaker 1: I mean it was chaotic in the first twenty four
Speaker 1: to forty eight hours. I mean the biggest thing was
Speaker 1: people frantically searching for other people, so people coming to
Speaker 1: see who I was. You know, a lot of people
Speaker 1: trying to record my physical features to put me on
Speaker 1: a register. Very very upset, people checking the beds next
Speaker 1: to me, going from place to place, and that was
Speaker 1: a big theme. I remember waking up from the surgery
Speaker 1: and award packed. You know, I was bed to bed
Speaker 1: to bed to bed to bed to people and being
Speaker 1: feeling very scared and you know, not knowing where I
Speaker 1: was what really because I had woken up, I didn't
Speaker 1: know what day it was or what was happening. And
Speaker 1: then I remember, after a long time summoning the courage
Speaker 1: to ask. There was a man who was British and
Speaker 1: my father's British and hearing his accent, and it just
Speaker 1: sort of, you know, jolted me into connected me with him,
Speaker 1: and I just sort of said, and it was it
Speaker 1: wasn't my father, as it turns out, I was another man.
Speaker 1: And I just said to him, can I use your phone?
Speaker 1: And he's like, of course you can, you know, And
Speaker 1: I thought, I've got a contact Australia.
Speaker 3: So you woke up out of these surgeries to no one.
Speaker 1: I remember being on the bed. I think I was.
Speaker 1: I don't even know if I had a gown on.
Speaker 1: I just remember feeling very vulnerable and exposed. And when
Speaker 1: I folcused this, I was confused. I was confused, and
Speaker 1: I wasn't in pain. Still, I still wasn't in pain.
Speaker 1: And the man handed me a mobile phone. And you know,
Speaker 1: if you got give it a mobile phone like which
Speaker 1: I couldn't. I couldn't remember a single number.
Speaker 3: But what are you going to say?
Speaker 2: You haven't got a clue what's going on where you are,
Speaker 2: what's happened?
Speaker 3: It's like what you're going to say on where I.
Speaker 1: Didn't know where I was. Yeah, it's a good point,
Speaker 1: and it's funny, you know, you'd think that you'd remember
Speaker 1: your parents' phone number, but I couldn't remember it for
Speaker 1: the life of me because I don't dial it. It's
Speaker 1: in my phone, of course, But I did actually remember
Speaker 1: the mobile phone number of the partner at my law
Speaker 1: firm that I worked for. I called him and he
Speaker 1: was driving down the coast on his holidays at the time,
Speaker 1: and he was like, hey.
Speaker 3: What's up. And I was like, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I need you to help me. I don't know where.
Speaker 1: I don't really know where I am, but I'm hurt.
Speaker 1: And then I started sort of speaking and then fortunately
Speaker 1: the the gentleman who was who lent me the phone
Speaker 1: just took over and said, look, this is where she is.
Speaker 1: This is what I think is going on with her.
Speaker 1: I don't really know. But and then of course, you know,
Speaker 1: working for, you know, a big Australian law firm was amazing.
Speaker 1: They sort of took everything over for me from there,
Speaker 1: and you know, parents insure as everyone who had to
Speaker 1: be notified. And I was in that local hospital for
Speaker 1: about two days, I believe, and then I got mediavaced
Speaker 1: on a DC ten to Bangkok. We were my partner
Speaker 1: and I were like kind of the own people on
Speaker 1: the plane and we got taken to a very nice
Speaker 1: American hospital in Bangkok, which which made me feel very comforted.
Speaker 1: So I was really really lucky that a I was
Speaker 1: able to get out of Krabi, which is where I
Speaker 1: was taken to Bangkok when I did, and then I was,
Speaker 1: you know, in the big American hospital and my family
Speaker 1: came to look after me there, and then they were
Speaker 1: really pushy and trying to get me back to Australia,
Speaker 1: and you know, I was very very lucky. I just
Speaker 1: don't even know what would have happened to me had
Speaker 1: I remained in Bangkok with the you know, given the
Speaker 1: severity of the infection that I was cultivating at the time.
Speaker 1: They quantus removed a whole section of seats and they
Speaker 1: brought over doctors and nurses from Australia, set up a
Speaker 1: little hospital on the plane, took me through cargo, and
Speaker 1: then I arrived in Australia. I remember when the plane
Speaker 1: sort of was touching down. I just been back on
Speaker 1: Australian soil. I just felt so much better, and there
Speaker 1: was you know, there was ambulances, sirens, and even though
Speaker 1: it had been many weeks really since it actually happened,
Speaker 1: and it was treated like an urgent. You know, I
Speaker 1: had put a neck brace on me straight away, and
Speaker 1: like the you know, you just can't I can't tell
Speaker 1: you just the Australian healthcare is just.
Speaker 3: Different level completely. What was it like when you saw
Speaker 3: your parents towards.
Speaker 1: That, well, I mean I remember feeling very guilty because
Speaker 1: my mum hates flying, and you know, I'm always you know,
Speaker 1: I was always getting into pickles that she had to
Speaker 1: come and you know, pick me up from the headmaster's office.
Speaker 1: And it felt I felt like that, and I was
Speaker 1: like sorry, and of course she was like she was
Speaker 1: she was sort of like, you're kidding. Like I obviously
Speaker 1: had no idea the extent of the disaster, and no
Speaker 1: idea of the panic and upset that they must have felt,
Speaker 1: you know, knowing that I had been caught up in it.
Speaker 1: They hadn't hadn't heard from me for some time, and
Speaker 1: so they were extremely worried that I had I had
Speaker 1: been been killed, and you know, I felt so happy
Speaker 1: that they were there, and my girlfriend came from the
Speaker 1: UK and another girlfriend came from Sydney, and I felt
Speaker 1: embarrassed from the attention. Actually, you know, yeah, but I
Speaker 1: guess from that point it's all really really hazy. From
Speaker 1: about New Year's was really hazy for me because I
Speaker 1: think that I was getting sick, and I think that
Speaker 1: my family were like, okay, there's something wrong with her,
Speaker 1: you know, and that was that caused them to look
Speaker 1: really closely at my body and to see that there
Speaker 1: was some shadowing on my lower back, which was effectively
Speaker 1: it was necrotizing vashi artists, which is a flesh eating,
Speaker 1: flesh eating infection, which is not very nice. And that's
Speaker 1: why I've had so many surgeries, because I went into
Speaker 1: surgery daily really for a very very long time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I had a lot of skin grafts, a
Speaker 1: lot of I mean I had so many. You know,
Speaker 1: usually when you get admitted to hospital, you get you know,
Speaker 1: you have a team, so you have like the AUTHO
Speaker 1: team of the ones looking after you if you're having
Speaker 1: a knee replaced or whatever. I had teams glore. It
Speaker 1: was just sort of and of course, you know, people
Speaker 1: were so kind to me so and I didn't really
Speaker 1: understand the attention, and of course I had no idea
Speaker 1: what an awful experience it was for the whole world,
Speaker 1: and so very few people. I think I might have
Speaker 1: been the only patient at Westmead Hospital who was from
Speaker 1: the tsunami, and so I really got you know, the
Speaker 1: best care. People were so kind to me.
Speaker 2: Wow, we were running out of time. But there's a
Speaker 2: couple of questions I want to ask you. Why did
Speaker 2: you want to go back after ten years of the
Speaker 2: ten year anniversary? Was that did you feel like that
Speaker 2: that was part of your recovery.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely. I felt it was a big milestone, you know,
Speaker 1: getting through ten years and I was still having surgery
Speaker 1: by then and I still have it now, you know,
Speaker 1: but nothing life saving. And I felt that the main
Speaker 1: reason I went back was to you know, honor the
Speaker 1: memory of some of the people, you know, I felt
Speaker 1: that that was the very least I could do. And
Speaker 1: also to confront it. You know, in my head, that
Speaker 1: place was a scary, awful, gruesome place. And then to
Speaker 1: go there and realize life goes on, my friend, that's
Speaker 1: in your head. People were having peanut coladas.
Speaker 3: And you're going back to the same rooftop bars.
Speaker 1: Exactly, of course, right, everyone's happy life has moved on, right,
Speaker 1: And so it was just to me when I was
Speaker 1: there and I went back, I was like, it kind
Speaker 1: of clicked that, you know, the only person really holding
Speaker 1: me back is myself and my memories in my head. Right,
Speaker 1: so they've all moved on and this place life goes
Speaker 1: on here and it actually is an idyllic, beautiful place,
Speaker 1: And it was just this one moment in time, right
Speaker 1: and life has moved on. It gave me perspective. You know,
Speaker 1: this giant tree that I remember looking at all day
Speaker 1: was actually not giant at all. You know, those sorts
Speaker 1: of things that were just exaggerated in my mind. And yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a terrible thing. But to go there and
Speaker 1: just sort of pay respects to, you know, the wife
Speaker 1: of the man that helped me, and that was good.
Speaker 1: It was sort of cathartic.
Speaker 3: Actually, I love that.
Speaker 2: One final question, the twenty year anniversary is coming up. Yeah,
Speaker 2: have you got any plans for that?
Speaker 3: And if you have, what there? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Well, I mean I probably would have gone back to
Speaker 1: Thailand had nothing else to do, but I have a
Speaker 1: beautiful friend who's getting married in Bali actually, so I mean,
Speaker 1: what you know I have I've been so lucky that
Speaker 1: I've been able to have three children since the tsunami
Speaker 1: and the idea of just having a beautiful family holiday
Speaker 1: with them and celebrating life. Yeah. Absolutely, and it's sort
Speaker 1: of you know a lot of people said you can
Speaker 1: do something, and I don't know. Maybe I probably will
Speaker 1: call the people who helped me and whatever and just say, hey,
Speaker 1: twenty years makes me feel ancient. But yeah, it really
Speaker 1: does date you, like people can literally work out your age.
Speaker 1: So I think I'll just sort of enjoy, you know,
Speaker 1: my family and just sort of, you know, really think
Speaker 1: about just how lucky I am and you know, how
Speaker 1: function has returned to my life and how grateful I
Speaker 1: am for that.
Speaker 2: Well, Rebecca, thank you ever so much for sharing your
Speaker 2: story with us.
Speaker 3: Inspirational. It just goes to prove what.
Speaker 2: The mind and the body is really really capable of,
Speaker 2: you know, especially when you're thrust into a situation that
Speaker 2: you can't control, how it goes into survival mode, how
Speaker 2: it protects you.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Thanks sam.
Speaker 2: My guest today was Rebecca Giles. Thanks for listening to
Speaker 2: this episode of head Game. If you enjoyed it, we
Speaker 2: share it with a friend. I'm at Middleton. See you
Speaker 2: again next time.