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Last updated: 1 june, 2010 - 15:30 GMT

Miracle survivor of the Haitian earthquake


Evans Monsignac

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On 12 January this year, Evans Monsignac was selling rice from his market stall in the Haitian capital of Port au Prince when the earthquake struck.

For weeks his family assumed he was one of the estimated 230,000 people who died in the disaster.

But 27 days later, on 8 February, he was finally pulled alive from the rubble.

He was later transferred to Tampa General Hospital in Florida, where he is still recuperating from his ordeal.

Unsurprisingly, Evans is still very frail, but speaking from his hospital bed, he told Lucy Ash about the moment the earthquake struck.

Sitting at his bedside, translating the interview, was Reverend Celillon Alteme.

Reverend Alteme is himself Haitian by birth, and is now an in-house counsellor for the hospital.

He told Lucy Ash that Evans's injuries were not confined to his body. He described how being entombed in the rubble for nearly a month took a heavy mental toll, and how Evans first arrived in Tampa extremely disturbed and suffering hallucinations.

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