A Doctor's Experience in the Nepal Earthquake

The morning after his brother's bachelor party, standing on the fourth floor of his family home, Dr. Arvind Goel, felt the ground move under his feet. "First it was minor vibrations and then it built up in a crescendo and then the couch where my four month old son was lying began to shake." "It was creepy," Goel, 32, continued. "The furniture began to shake, then the light fixtures fell from the wall and then they began to swing like a pendulum. The large screen TV was about to fall." Goel, a practicing nephrologist, was in Katmandu, Nepal, last month for his younger brother's wedding during the devastating earthquake which killed 8,800 and injured nearly 23,000 people. He shared his experience and what we can do to help. Within seconds, as Goel realized he was in the midst of an earthquake, he grabbed his son and ran down the stairwell, which was familiar to him as a child growing up in the decades-old concrete reinforced house. But when he reached the second floor, he heard his mother and father screaming God's name. Instinctively, he turned to help them, but he realized he could do little with his son in his arms. He continued down the staircase as the house began to tilt. "For those moments in the stairway, I was certain the walls were going to collapse on me," he recalls. He reached the garden to find his wife and two-year-old daughter safe. His uncles and other wedding party guests were standing at the edge of the lawn, holding on to a tree and watching the ...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news