Posted on 12/28/2004 5:10:05 AM PST by jimbo123
Jet-setting supermodel Petra Nemcova survived the terrifying Asian tsunami by clinging to the top of a palm tree for eight hours - wincing through the pain of a broken pelvis and haunted by the sight of her boyfriend being swept out to sea.
"This huge wave just pulled us out of the house," Nemcova, 25, told the Daily News last night from her hospital bed in Thailand. "It was so powerful I couldn't get up. I couldn't get out of it."
"People were screaming and kids were screaming all over the place, screaming, 'Help, help.' And after a few minutes, you didn't hear the kids anymore."
Nemcova and her fashion photographer boyfriend Simon Atlee, 33, were spending the holidays in a beachfront bungalow at the Thai resort of Khao Lak when Sunday's catastrophe struck.
"I heard people screaming and I looked out the window and people were jumping out of the way, jumping into the pool," said Nemcova, who lives in New York and London and was on the cover of Sports Illustrated's 2003 swimsuit issue.
"I was screaming, 'On the roof! On the roof!' I tried to go on the roof but I got sucked away," Nemcova said.
Before she and Atlee could react, a wall of water shredded their wooden bungalow and sent them sprawling into a churning sea of debris that swallowed Atlee without a trace.
She kept her head above the floodwaters and was able to grasp a palm tree before she could be swept out to sea - but had to clutch it for eight hours, watching bodies float past in a scene of unimaginable devastation.
"I just tried to survive and tried to think positive," Nemcova said.
She gripped the tree in excruciating pain under the burning tropical sun until rescuers found her at sunset and carried her to an overwhelmed local hospital on a makeshift stretcher.
"I was so broken, I couldn't walk," Nemcova said. "There were so many people with horrible injuries, with blood everywhere. It was like a war movie."
Nemcova was airlifted to an inland hospital, where doctors found she had a broken pelvis and serious internal injuries.
"There might be pieces of bone stuck to my organs," said Nemcova, who was medicated with morphine but still agonized at her boyfriend's disappearance.
"I can't find Simon," she said. "It was horrible. I'm very lucky, but I can't find Simon."
In New York, her sister Olga Nemcova, 23, and friend Jamison Ernest, a fashion designer, knew only that Nemcova and Atlee were vacationing somewhere near the exotic island of Phuket.
Using credit card records, Internet searches and international cell phone calls, they launched a marathon search that eventually tracked down Nemcova in the hospital.
After a tearful conversation yesterday morning, they got back to work trying to arrange medical-evacuation flights to get Nemcova to the U.S., or perhaps her native Czech Republic.
"I'm just happy that she's okay," Olga Nemcova said. "Now we're praying for Simon."
They frantically E-mailed pictures of Atlee to hospitals and rescue organizations in Thailand, hoping someone would recognize the tall, handsome Englishman with the piercing blue eyes.
"Thank God that Petra is alive," Ernest said. "The biggest concern is to find Simon. He vanished without a trace."
Nemcova and Atlee began dating about two years ago, becoming a dashing, witty couple in the international fashion scene. They were comfortable on glamorous beaches: He shot all the pictures for her 2005 calendar, many of them as they waded together in the warm waters off the south of France.
"They were planning on being in Thailand for two or three weeks - just to be there and go scuba diving, relax on the beach, take a break from their schedules," Ernest said.
Nemcova booked the trip as a surprise for Atlee, so his family in England had no way to find him yesterday until they got a grim call from Ernest.
"We know nothing," Atlee's sister Jodi Hansard said from London, where she waited in agony for any word from British officials. "We knew that they were in Thailand, but we didn't even know where they were."
She is not a New Yorker. Just a carpetbagger.
Exactly. Maybe none of us can identify with being a supermodel (I know I can't!) but an American clinging to a palm tree in the water for 8 hours with a broken pelvis after watching her boyfriend swept away... I'm sorry. That's newsworthy. Not as newsworthy as all the horrible deaths. But newsworthy.
You should post more often.
She is already back in the states and on TV? I thought she was stuck in a tree and had a broken pelvis????
Poor thing. She won't be doing that again.
Have a sandwich! A pickle! Anything!
Dear Petra,
After your wounds heal, please continue to do exactly what you have been doing.
That's why I never buy lottery tickets, except insurance. I'm afraid I might win and use up my good karma all at once!
She's a human being. Regardless of her status or wealth, she endured something horrible, the same as everyone else. My heart goes out to every single person who was involved in that horrible catastrophe. Every one of them regardless of their status.
poo ket...obviously it was meant for worldly travellers not high school boys...LOL!
I know it's the sky behind her, but at first glance it looks like a huge wave, really weird.
I think the PETTY people here on this thread are the little people who can't afford or will never travel to an exotic island EVER...the asinine remarks that sputter off their fingertips is a form of jealousy...
no doubt, god should exclude the new york and california elites from life's problems. (/s)
Well said, thanks.
I noticed two things on the TV news last night. 1.) Coverage of this disaster began after the first commercial break, the lead stories being "storm coverage" and "tragedy on 128" - another nitwit rolled her suv and bought it. 2.) When they finally got around to mentioning that scores of thousands of non-beautiful people may have perished in Asia, they showed film from Thailand of all shirtless western men at a "resort" on the coast.
PS: Checkout my new tagline.
Why? Because you enjoy my posts so much?
Yeah. That's what it is. We're jealous. You nailed us.
Hard to be too jealous now...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.