In Haiti on Wednesday, French rescuers pulled a teenage girlvery dehydrated, with a broken left leg and moments from death — from the rubble of a home near the destroyed St. Gerard University, a stunning recovery 15 days after the earthquake that devastated the city.
Darlene Etienne was rushed to a French military field hospital and then a hospital ship, groaning through an oxygen mask with her eyes open in a lost stare.
“She’s alive!” said paramedic Paul Francois-Valette, who accompanied her into the hospital.
Authorities say it is rare for anyone to survive more than 72 hours without water, let alone more than two weeks. But Etienne may have had some access to water from a bathroom of the collapsed home, and rescuers said she mumbled something about having a little Coca-Cola with her in the rubble.
The last previous confirmed rescue of someone trapped by the initial quake occurred Saturday, when French rescuers extricated a man pinned under the ruins of a hotel grocery store.
A man pulled Tuesday from the rubble of a downtown store said he had been trapped during an aftershock.
The Associated Press
