Published in Washington, D.C.
December 31, 2004
American survives ordeal after dismissing warnings
By Richard S. Ehrlich
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
A 72-year-old American who felt an earthquake but shrugged off breakfast conversation about a tsunami was slammed two hours later by a "line of cumulous clouds" of water at Golden Buddha Beach Resort and carried out to sea.
"It was probably next to atomic energy as one of the greatest physical forces possible," Gerald Bodden said yesterday from his hospital bed.
Bandaged, and with skin peeling from his face, legs and torso, Mr. Bodden was recovering from "sunstroke, dehydration, shock and general fatigue, being in the water for four hours and swimming for much of that time."
Clinging to a broken tree while drifting in the Andaman Sea, "I estimated at first I was two kilometers off shore, and the current dragged me northward for a while and I didn't know where I would end up. Maybe Burma."
More than 1,800 people drowned or were crushed to death, many of them foreign tourists, along Thailand's west coast on Sunday morning when an underwater earthquake triggered giant waves that pulverized cities, villages and resorts.
Throughout the affected region, about 600 Americans who were listed as missing have been found, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in Washington yesterday.
But several thousand had not been located four days after the disaster struck, he said.
When the tsunami hit, Mr. Bodden said, he and other foreigners were in Golden Buddha Beach Resort, a cluster of about 40 exclusive, privately owned bungalows on tiny Koh Pra Tong island in the Andaman Sea about one mile off Thailand's coast near Khura Buri, 70 miles north of crippled Phuket island.
Originally from Mobile, Alabama, and formerly a writer of computer instruction manuals, he worked in California's Silicon Valley from 1976 to 1990 before retiring in Thailand 14 years ago.
In his two-bedroom, beachside bungalow, he felt an earthquake "at least two hours" before the tsunami hammered the island.
"I was in my house, which exists no longer, in bed, and it went like this," he said, shaking himself back and forth in his hospital bed for a few seconds to indicate the jarring sensation.
"But I spent almost 15 years in the [San Francisco] Bay Area, and we're used to that. And I said, 'Oh. An earthquake somewhere.'"
Other foreigners also felt the quake.
"Oh yeah, a couple of people mentioned it. I'm pretty blase about that, having lived in California. Somebody said, 'Did you feel an earthquake this morning?' and I said, 'Yeah,' and continued eating my eggs.
The resort's foreigners chatted about a tsunami again when several of them saw giant, white walls of water rapidly approaching their tiny, west coast beach.
"What I saw on the horizon looked like a whole line of cumulous clouds. Instead, they were huge walls of water," he said.
"I saw every drop of water being pulled out to sea, which of course was feeding the tsunami. And I should have had the sense of mind to climb to higher ground. But I just did not. I'm a great believer in self preservation, but I just missed it this time."
Throughout his four hours at sea, he said, "I knew that I was caught in a force beyond my control. It was weird. It was like a dream."
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