We'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which this podcast was produced, the Gaigle people of the orination. We pay our respects to Elder's past.
In present, It's Boxing Day two thousand and four and Rebecca Giles is relaxing in her beachside bungalow on Thailand's Pp Island. After a busy year of work, she's escaped to the picture perfect spot for.
A last minute holiday.
She's relaxing on her bed reading a magazine when she begins to hear.
A rumbling sound.
Then suddenly her room explodes and disintegrates around her. Rebecca is swept away in a fizzing round wave full of debris. Just as she's thinking this is the end and pictures of her family members fill her mind, the surge of water throws her onto the roof of a nearby hotel. As the water begins to subside, and Rebeka tries to get her her bearings, her surroundings looked nothing like the
idyllic island she was relaxing on just moments ago. She doesn't realize it now, but she's just lived through the deadliest tsunami.
In modern history. I'm Att Middleton and this is head Game Today.
Rebecca Giles on surviving one of the biggest natural disasters of our time. Rebecca Giles, it's an absolute pleasure to have you here on my podcast head Game. Talk to me about when you decided, like, do you know what I just need to get away?
I need to break? Was a conversation that you had with your boyfriend.
Yeah, very last minute. I just had the you know, I mean, just had the hugest year and really just needed to sit on a beach and just unwind before I was going into a trial. So before I put the I just need to just put the tools down for a moment before I picked them up again for a big year again. And we just thought we'd just nip over to Thailand, don't have a great break, and come back with a good tan.
So but you you recognized at that time that it was well needed, right, You've got a big year ahead of you. So it took me through the trip. You you you've got your passports. Are you excited at the at the airport? Is it just yeah?
Look, the funny thing is that yeah, oh, very well. My partner and I were discussing where we should go, and we're just I mean, you know what it's like when you pick a holiday, just look at the map. And he'd actually never been to Pp Island. I'd been there many years ago, and I recommended. I said, look this is go to Thailand. It's idyllic, it's beautiful. Trust me on this. So we just made, honestly a last minute plan and we were there sort of in a couple of days.
So you get to Pp Island, are you really relaxing into it? You fun?
It was fun, Like you know, it's very rare for me to be away from my family for Christmas as well. But you know that the particular resort we were staying at had all these sort of compulsory gala dinners and whatever, and there were lots of entirely there's a lot of drag queens that they had a drag show and it was all very festive, and you know, it was nice.
It was like a really you know, evident sort of joy in the air because it was Christmas and everyone was happy and laughing and there was a great dinner the night before and yeah, it was It's a beautiful island.
So everything felt right.
Nothing that felt you know, some people say, before an instant happens, you know there's something you know there was.
I did not have a sixth sense. And if that's what, if that's what you're implying, No, I don't think I'm that intuitive. I just maybe if all the signs were there, but I didn't notice any.
Take me back if you can.
You waking up and it was yeah, because I think people don't realize how your life can be flipped upside down in an instant.
I mean, I often do think about that day because I often go back to it because I'm scared of not remembering it and not remembering what happened. It's you know, we woke up and we had a really big buffet breakfast, and I remember just feeling like I had really overdone it, and I remember I had to go and lie down
because I had a bit of a saw tummy. So I went back to our room, and you know, I remember seeing a couple of the drag queens not in drag with a bit of smear makeup, and we all had a little laugh and some people we saw at breakfast from the night before. You know what it's like when you're in a resort and I went back to my room and was reading a magazine and my partner had gone to return a DVD we'd watched the night before.
I was supposed to clean up the room and I was I didn't do that, and I remember him just coming in the door and thinking, you know, the panic when you're supposed to have done something you haven't done it. And then at around that time, I heard quite a commotion, which, you know, like a you know, and I idyllic island setting is a bit of a weird noise. You know, there's no cars on this island or anything like that,
so you don't ever have the noise of traffic. And it was commotion, but not scary commotion, just commotion, people making noise, no screaming or anything. And I remember just observing it.
Just something out of the norm, right, Yeah, there.
Was something out of the option. Something I just noticed the noise and I didn't I wasn't alarmed or panicked at all. And I can't even remember whether my partner said anything to me, but I just observed it. And then it was like, you know, I can see the movies about tsunamis and things like that, and you see water creep you know, water filling up and things like that.
That was not my experience at all. I was inside a structure and it was a weatherboard bungalow, and for me, it was like a bomb went off because it was so so sudden, so violent, and everything disintegrated on impact. But it wasn't like water either, So it wasn't like I was, you know, surfing away or anything like that, or even felt the sensation of water. It felt like a bomb had exploded. And then I was in something like it didn't feel I didn't feel the soothing, you know,
feeling of water at all. It was like I was being crushed. I often describe it like being in an industrial blender, like if I'd fallen into some sort of blender and I was just being pulverized really, because it was quite I mean, I didn't feel any pain at all during this, but it was very, very confusing. It was a sensation I'd never felt before. I didn't understand.
Last fought before it happened. Do you remember just looking around in it just I Do.
You remember seeing the wall to the right of me collapsing and then the air conditioning coming down on me? But that was in a microsecond, like not slow motion or you know, and no life flashing before my eyes, like it was micro second too quick.
Right, So you're there, Well, I'm enjoying life, no warning signs and commotion going on. You literally go from one gaze to the next, and the whole place is disintegrating around you and you're being crushed.
I mean, when you think about the room, the small room we're in right now, if that was to disintegrate in a second, you know, I mean, I know how fortunate I was not to be hit on the head. And I think that that is how many people died that day. They lost consciousness, they were knocked out, and they drowned, whereas I was awake and with it the whole time and was able to I mean, I didn't actually do anything to save myself, but at least I closed my mouth and went with whatever was happening to me.
And you know, I think that a lot of people died in more robust structures because they didn't collapse. But I was very lucky that the strength of the water destroyed the building and it didn't trap me within the building. But I was able to move with everything. I moved with the wave, so at the time, I just you know, the narrative, the internal narrative is really interesting, right, Like obviously the first reaction is what the fuck is is?
You know, immediately it's shocked, like what what? What?
What?
And then and then it turns to naturally, okay, really what is this and trying to understand from a sensory perspective what the hell it was. I mean, you know, tsunami is something that is in a vernacula now very much so, but back then it wasn't at all. I'd remember it from like, you know, Asian cartoons and like, you know, I knew what the word meant, but maybe title wave was probably something, but I never even thought it was water related at all. So I was trying
to understand. I thought maybe a truck had sort of crushed album, and there's no trucks on the island. I just couldn't. I was going through all the things.
It could be, trying to figure out what was.
And I was just sort of eliminating things in my head, just really logically rationally trying to work out what had happened to me. But the point is I was being moved at such a force and such a speed that I had no control over any of any part of my body. It was so fun like there was no chance I could even move my right arm.
Just you were just stuck. I was just going.
I was head over feet over, you know, like being spun through through with a lot of debris, like a wall of debris. Basically, when did.
You realize that you were in water? When was that realization?
Not until I was out of the water. Actually wow, you know, but I did know that. I actually thought maybe it was mud. I thought maybe there'd been a landslide, is what I concluded ultimately in my you know, rational elimination of possible causes. But it didn't feel like water at all. You know, I've always had a great relationship with the water and felt that I could be you know,
but I it didn't feel that way. And in fact, you know, when I was ultimately propelled out of the water by a force that I don't really understand, it wasn't you know, blue beautiful you know, tie beach water. It was thick, dark, brown, stinky water that was a soup of like debris, luggage, people, trees, window frames. You know. It reminded me of the local tip actually wow. And the smell was just you know, it was an overwhelming,
very noticeable smell immediately. Yeah, So it didn't feel like you know, I've seen a lot of them movies, and it just just what it looked like and how it's been recreated wasn't wasn't really my experience. It was just it was a slurry really.
And when you were trying to figure this out psychologically in your head, what is going on? What were the answers that you were getting? Can you remember some of your thoughts? Can? Yah?
Of course? Of course.
I mean, like I say, it was immediately shock, what is this? And then a more rational I turned to a more rational view of what are the potential causes? And then I really couldn't work it out. And I thought maybe a landslide or maybe a truck or something
like that. And I just I also thought, because the bungalow I was in and I was on a foot on bed was very low to the ground, I had it in my head that maybe I was just really low of the ground and someone was going to just pull me out of whatever it was or just grab me. I had obviously no understanding that it was a global event and that you know, I was one of thousands affected on an island, and that one of many in the country and the region. I had no idea of how small I was in this incident.
Do you think you're going to die?
You know when it happened, Well, not at that point, not at that point. I mean at that point I was still, you know, going through the process of elimination. And then something in me moved on from that thought because I was like, Okay, that's very interesting because I can't actually do anything about whatever it is, and oh gee, my lungs are starting to hurt, and I might be
in a bit of strife here. And then suddenly the realization of holy shit, this is actually a really bad, dangerous situation for me, and I could be looking at something quite scary.
And then if you realize your lungs was obviously the pressure being crushed, when did you think?
I remember just I remember just feeling feeling, feeling it in my chest, and then thinking I don't really have a lot of options here. I don't even know what this is. I'm in trouble. And then you know, the panic. It was really interesting, the wave of emotions and then the panic turned to sort of extreme sort of anger and sorrow, like it was sort of like no, no, no, no, no,
no no, I'm only twenty seven. This can't be like no, this is not the plan, right, And I just remember then immediately thinking it's so funny, like what you value, and remember thinking about my family and my niece who was only two at the time, and I didn't have kids at that time. I have many now, but you know, just feeling just extreme sorrow that I wouldn't see her again. And then I just wow, so this was going for and then oh yeah, and then suddenly I'm thinking, oh,
that's right. I'm really scared of dying. I wonder if this is going to hurt. Just all these sort of crazy, crazy thoughts about you know, is it going to hurt?
Oh?
Am I going to go to hell? Probably? You know, all of these sort of things about I remember, you're supposed to do before you die, I should really be like and I was always sort of thoughts. And then I remember sort of almost wincing and bracing myself to prepare for that moment of death. And I didn't even know how I would die, because of course I didn't realize I was in water. But I just knew that I was in trouble, and it was almost at the moment where I kind of accepted my fate that I
was propelled out of the water and I was. I remember, it's almost like you know when you're in a swimming pool and your dad throws you from one end to the other. That was the sort of force that I was because I remember being out of the water and I landed on a roof which was a hotel.
So that's how high this is. And again you're thinking that you're on the ground.
Yeah, someone was just going to pluck and then all of.
A sudden, you're that high that you get thrown onto a rooftop, hotel rooftop.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, And that's the thing, you know, you Like I said, I wasn't in pain, but from the moment it hit me to that point, you know, I had broken many bones. Didn't feel it at all. You know, I had gone from being in a structure to outsider structure. I had traveled significant distance as well, and I just had no concept of that at all because it was just a sheer force.
You know, you didn't have time to look at your surroundings and.
Go You had no bearings at all, no bearings at all, where I was, where I was going, what it was at all. And you know, one of the big real sort of life lessons that I learned from the whole experience is, you know how we as humans and people were just s like we had these tiny We're so fragile, you know, we're these little specs. You know, we had no match for sort of mother nature and you know, the anger of the ocean, and we're just really you know,
we're very vulnerable. And you know, I was extremely lucky not to have passed out.
So you get thrown up out of the water onto a rooftop. Is that when you realize actually, at.
That time, I am my adrenaline had kicked in big time and I and I wasn't thinking rationally and I wasn't I wasn't in that same head, you know, mindset at all. It was a very serene It was like, you know, it was like having you know, taking mushrooms and then you're suddenly on this like where the hell, like what the what the heck is going on?
You wanted to be on a rooftop, but not like this.
Yeah, no, I do like rooftop bars, but not this one. It was just very confusing and just smell a fizzing noise. It was a really strong fizzy noise, and all of those sorts of things. The heat of the sun. It was an incredibly hot day, and just being extremely confused, not really understanding. You know, if it was the tsunami in my head, maybe the water would be clear. I mean,
this was whack water. It was like it was like the island had destroyed, was destroyed and had caved in and spontaneously combusted because all the structures, apart from the one I was on the top of, were no longer there.
So you're there on the rooftop all this. You know, this sea of anger is going past you. When does it subside? When do you just do you just like think, why I've stopped moving. I'm just going to stay here until happens.
I remember there was a man near me, and I remember being conscious of him. He had a lot of blood on him. And then there was another surge, like a very very strong surge that felt it must have been a second way, and then that came over the roof and I couldn't move at that point. By that time, I'd realized I could see my bone and my arm there, and I couldn't move my legs, and I was like, oh, I don't think I can help myself here. Like I
couldn't swim. I couldn't swim or hold on or you hear these amazing stories of people who saved their kids and did things. Not my story. You know. I was truly hopeless and helpless. And I remember thinking, Okay, well this is this is it probably for me because I just but the surge came and kind of sucked me next to the structure and there was I know from the water subsiding ultimately that there was just a huge mountain of debris that had built up against the side
of this structure. And I got sort of wedged in between kind of near the utter and this mountain, and I had a little air pocket that I was able to sort of sit in, and I just remember feeling the weight of this mountain of debris just pressing against me, thinking, oh my god, I'm going to be crushed to death, or just never didn't feel none of it was like nice water, you know that you could navigate through or
anything like that. It felt like it was very It felt like being in a tip that had water in it, you know, So the water did subside ultimately, and then the island sort of came alive again. You know, there was it was, you know, like something out of a horror movie.
Really, So when it did subside, was there ever, and again just getting into your head, was there ever a sigh of relief going that's over now, but then having to deal with a whole new world of pain, which.
Were your injuries.
Was there moment where the water went where you could actually think and hear, and was there.
A moment.
One thing that was you know, I wasn't my normal self for that whole day from that moment really, of course, you know, I wasn't thinking rationally. I became very very quiet. I speak a lot, you know, normally m I probably would have said a handful of words that day. I I think it was because I recognized I was badly injured, and I I just felt I just went deep into myself.
You know, I wasn't really I I was very conscious almost immediately of people running around, screaming, searching, and a lot of people saying there's gonna be another way, There's gonna be you know, people were running to the mountains and trying it. They were kind of evacuating the area, and I was, you know, unable to move. I'm steal in this mountain of debris, and I just remember just being unable to help myself or do anything for me.
How did you get off the rooftop?
Then?
Now? Yeah, so some guys that I always describe them as backpackers, but I don't know why I would call them that. Maybe they had a backpack. It's just like they were just young guys. And they came by and they put me on a door that was in the mountain of the debris, climbed up it, and then kind of navigated me down. I remember like sliding off and this and that, and I kind of remember thinking this is almost comical, like it's you know, it's ridiculous.
Like you must have been there for some some amount of time.
And yeah, and I know that you can't free shake time because you know, the adrenaline is kicking in. You're going in and out of shock at one, but god, you must have been there for a while for the second wave to then hit and then for everything to subside, for people to actually go out, you know, or look around and have that that calavity of mine to go right.
Actually, we need to start helping people, messing.
What was amazing was the amount of people helping people, you know, instead of those instead of flying to the mountains out of fear of their own lives. You know, a lot of people were going from place to place and it was incredible, you know, to see the amount of sort of camaraderie. This girl needs help, come on, will come in to say. I mean, I don't even know if these people were doctors or what they were,
but it was the instinct to assist was amazing. And my boyfriend at the time was you know, he had found me by this point, and so I think he might have directed a bit of traffic around me.
I was going to ask about him, so.
Yea yeah, and he sort of went the other way, but he was standing, so I think he was in a bit of a better position. And he was quite badly injured to his lower half of his body, but like quite deep lacerations to his legs and things like that. But I have no doubt he was directing traffic to get me to a safe place. And you know, I remember this brown, old brown door that I was on
and they sort of used it as a stretcher. So they got me down ultimately, and then took me to the rooftop of a hotel called the Peppe Princess, and that was a rooftop that was a it was a bar, had a pool and sun loungers and I've since been back there and I see these people, you know, lying on these sun lounges, you know, looking like they're dead.
But my experience was there were actually lots of dead people on that on that rooftop, and I was taken there and I was put on a sun lounger, and I just remember being feeling just really quiet, and I, you know, I'm really needle phobic and I always have been, and all I could think about was the fact that I probably would have to have a needle because of my injuries, and just sort of like you know, the funny things that you think of when like that's the
least of my worries, really, like just crazy thoughts. And there was just a lot of activity around me. There was a lot of bodies being brought up to that area.
Did you feel like you were in a dream or on out body? Except yeah, for sure, for sure. I can't imagine.
It was a very surreal experience.
I mean, for your injuries were really you didn't realize it at the time.
But I didn't feel really, I didn't really feel pain.
When did the pain kick in? When did you start to realize.
I remember that towards the end of the day, I felt uncomfortable and I felt my Obviously, I had obviously had some bad internal bleeding in around my pelvis area, and I remember my stomach feeling quite large and rock hard, and I was just getting weaker and speaking less, and I think that I was just losing blood basically, So
I just wasn't you know. I remember people coming to put alcohol on my I had quite a few, like large open wounds on my legs and my arms, putting you know, finding mini bars and putting alcohol in me. And I remember I remember the sun being just so hot that day, and I remember feeling so and really hurting my wounds. And so there was, you know, a beautiful man who's an amazing friend of mine, who held as wrong over me for a long time. It's total stranger. I lost his wife that day. You know, I had
two little kids with him. A lot of people helped me, you know, And it's so funny, you know, us privileged Australians, we just sort of think, you know, we're entitled to the best of everything. And I remember thinking, oh, I think I even said to Damien, you know, I don't worry.
Australian government will be here in like no time at all, you know, will be, will be, will be right, And that help never came, you know, And many, many hours passed, and it wasn't really till the late afternoon till a plane went overhead and it was a military plane to survey the island. And then not long after that, a helicopter apatche helicopter game often see you know on your s those helicopters, and I think you then you cannot pay me enough money to get one of those a game.
So all during that time, ultimately you're in a in a not even a field hospital. You're you're you're in this rooftop bar. You're alcohol reverting back to to the old school techniques of just infection with alcohol and and just comforting.
That's all they could do because everything was destroyed, right.
Yeah, A lot of people, a lot of people were trying to keep me awake.
Yeah, what's your name?
Where are you from? Yeah? That that's was And there was no form of communication. There's no people making phone calls or anything like that, and it was sort of you know, like we love going to these secluded feature resorts in these countries, but when something like that happens, you know, you really are isolated, very very far from you know, the eastern suburbs of Sydney.
Your privileged life.
Right when you're on this rooftop bar, you're being sort of treat in a way where you were just being made comfortable ultimately around you. You said that there was multiple individuals. Were they they are dead and alive or were they being being treated as well.
I remember seeing a lot of dead bodies, and I don't believe i'd ever seen one before my life. It wasn't really horrific. These people looked like they were sleeping, and I think that that's because a lot of people just you know, were knocked on the head and drowned, and they just looked like they were a bit you know, broken, you know, a bit And they were just slowly bringing people up to that area and placing body is there.
And I remember thinking times, I'm like, am I dead, you know, so a lot of like weird things going on in my head, of course, and then yeah, I think that there was a lot of that sort of area became a kind of centralized area because it was a little bit half the ground and people were coordinating care for other people. There were very few people who were really badly injured, you know. I mean, when you think about how many Australians are in Thailand over Christmas,
I mean there's thousands. Only twenty Australians died in the tsunami, which is extraordinary. And my impression was you either you were really lucky and you were fine you died, But there were very few people around me who had bad injuries like me. And that may not be right. It's just in the area that I was, I didn't see
that many. I know, there was an American woman who apparently I couldn't see her, I could hear her was quite badly injured, and she was the first person off the island and they winched her into the helicopter and I just remember thinking, I can't do that. There's no way I can be in one of those winch things.
And there were a lot of people who were you know, really interesting, those people who you could tell were the natural leaders of coordinating care for people, and a lot of Australian, a lot of Australian voices in that as well, a lot of Australian accents. And at Apache, helicopter came and it landed in the water, in the shallow water, and there was a decision made to get me onto
that helicopter. The helicopter was already quite full when it arrived at Pepe Island, and they put me back on my brown door and took me out into the water and placed me on the legs of quite a few people who were already seated into the helicopter. I think that would have been you know, five six pm, maybe
even later. We'd been there all day really and you know, I know how you know, the idea that I was one of the first people off that island, You know, it's very sobering, you know, when you know you consider what ultimately happened to me in terms of infection, how lucky I was to get to medical care really really quickly.
Did you realize on the rooftop before you rescue came, orfore help came, how badly injured you were?
You said you looked at your arm.
Well, I knew I could have been my legs, so I knew something bad had happened. I was very afraid.
Of fractures from your legs.
Well, I mean this, I had a very very deep wind here on my right upper leg and these were sort of there in my calf on my right so my left leg and my right leg. But I was more so, you know, the concern where I couldn't move, and I was you know, obviously I thought what that might be, and I didn't really want to think about that too much.
In Spye, Yeah, you get put onto the helicopter.
When do you realize, Rebecca, how serious your injuries are?
Because you are not there?
Not there forty operations, yeah, probably more, But.
When do you realize, I would say, the extent of what you've just gone through, where you've just.
Maybe six months later, oh really?
Oh yeah, yeah, I mean again, it was the sort of you know, you're in a state of shock, you don't really understand what's happening to you, and then you get the good stuff, the drugs, and you're off in another world and you don't really know what's happening, and it wasn't really until you know, mid the following year after, you know, my injuries really manifested themselves that all that
urgent medical care was required. I mean the day I got off the helicopter and was taken by ambulance to a local hospital and I had surgery straight away, like immediately, almost within minutes of arriving.
And did no one tell you how serious you know it was? It just a look.
It wasn't a normal hospital admission. It wasn't like you know, sitting at the children's hospital and getting triaged, and you know I was, I was sort of fading by that point. And I was operated on immediately, an emergency, you know, no anesthetic. I had a laparotomy, and then once they identified the source of bleeding, I was packed, then taken
up to theater and then anesthetized. And you know, but those people had to be overwhelmed with so many terribly injured people, and to just manage that the way that they did, I mean, it's incredible, you know they would you know, these hospitals, these local hospitals are set up for you know, tourists who have upset tummies and dehydrated. Right there was a red dis injuries. They were incredible. I mean I got plenty of I got the last lot of blood they had available.
And when did normality and you know, inverted kind of normality sort of kicking? When did you was it each day that you went through was it? Was it calming down more and more because two hundred and thirty thousand people plus died on that day.
I mean it was chaotic in the first twenty four to forty eight hours. I mean the biggest thing was people frantically searching for other people, so people coming to see who I was. You know, a lot of people trying to record my physical features to put me on a register. Very very upset, people checking the beds next to me, going from place to place, and that was a big theme. I remember waking up from the surgery
and award packed. You know, I was bed to bed to bed to bed to bed to people and being feeling very scared and you know, not knowing where I was what really because I had woken up, I didn't know what day it was or what was happening. And then I remember, after a long time summoning the courage
to ask. There was a man who was British and my father's British and hearing his accent, and it just sort of, you know, jolted me into connected me with him, and I just sort of said, and it was it wasn't my father, as it turns out, I was another man. And I just said to him, can I use your phone? And he's like, of course you can, you know, And I thought, I've got a contact Australia.
So you woke up out of these surgeries to no one.
I remember being on the bed. I think I was. I don't even know if I had a gown on. I just remember feeling very vulnerable and exposed. And when I folcused this, I was confused. I was confused, and I wasn't in pain. Still, I still wasn't in pain. And the man handed me a mobile phone. And you know, if you got give it a mobile phone like which I couldn't. I couldn't remember a single number.
But what are you going to say?
You haven't got a clue what's going on where you are, what's happened?
It's like what you're going to say on where I.
Didn't know where I was. Yeah, it's a good point, and it's funny, you know, you'd think that you'd remember your parents' phone number, but I couldn't remember it for the life of me because I don't dial it. It's in my phone, of course, But I did actually remember the mobile phone number of the partner at my law firm that I worked for. I called him and he was driving down the coast on his holidays at the time, and he was like, hey.
What's up. And I was like, I don't know.
I need you to help me. I don't know where. I don't really know where I am, but I'm hurt. And then I started sort of speaking and then fortunately the the gentleman who was who lent me the phone just took over and said, look, this is where she is. This is what I think is going on with her. I don't really know. But and then of course, you know, working for, you know, a big Australian law firm was amazing.
They sort of took everything over for me from there, and you know, parents insure as everyone who had to be notified. And I was in that local hospital for about two days, I believe, and then I got mediavaced on a DC ten to Bangkok. We were my partner and I were like kind of the own people on the plane and we got taken to a very nice American hospital in Bangkok, which which made me feel very comforted.
So I was really really lucky that a I was able to get out of Krabi, which is where I was taken to Bangkok when I did, and then I was, you know, in the big American hospital and my family came to look after me there, and then they were really pushy and trying to get me back to Australia, and you know, I was very very lucky. I just don't even know what would have happened to me had I remained in Bangkok with the you know, given the severity of the infection that I was cultivating at the time.
They quantus removed a whole section of seats and they brought over doctors and nurses from Australia, set up a little hospital on the plane, took me through cargo, and then I arrived in Australia. I remember when the plane sort of was touching down. I just been back on Australian soil. I just felt so much better, and there was you know, there was ambulances, sirens, and even though it had been many weeks really since it actually happened,
and it was treated like an urgent. You know, I had put a neck brace on me straight away, and like the you know, you just can't I can't tell you just the Australian healthcare is just.
Different level completely. What was it like when you saw your parents towards.
That, well, I mean I remember feeling very guilty because my mum hates flying, and you know, I'm always you know, I was always getting into pickles that she had to come and you know, pick me up from the headmaster's office. And it felt I felt like that, and I was like sorry, and of course she was like she was
she was sort of like, you're kidding. Like I obviously had no idea the extent of the disaster, and no idea of the panic and upset that they must have felt, you know, knowing that I had been caught up in it. They hadn't hadn't heard from me for some time, and so they were extremely worried that I had I had been been killed, and you know, I felt so happy that they were there, and my girlfriend came from the UK and another girlfriend came from Sydney, and I felt
embarrassed from the attention. Actually, you know, yeah, but I guess from that point it's all really really hazy. From about New Year's was really hazy for me because I think that I was getting sick, and I think that my family were like, okay, there's something wrong with her, you know, and that was that caused them to look really closely at my body and to see that there was some shadowing on my lower back, which was effectively it was necrotizing vashi artists, which is a flesh eating,
flesh eating infection, which is not very nice. And that's why I've had so many surgeries, because I went into surgery daily really for a very very long time. Yeah, I mean I had a lot of skin grafts, a lot of I mean I had so many. You know, usually when you get admitted to hospital, you get you know, you have a team, so you have like the AUTHO team of the ones looking after you if you're having
a knee replaced or whatever. I had teams glore. It was just sort of and of course, you know, people were so kind to me so and I didn't really understand the attention, and of course I had no idea what an awful experience it was for the whole world, and so very few people. I think I might have been the only patient at Westmead Hospital who was from the tsunami, and so I really got you know, the best care. People were so kind to me.
Wow, we were running out of time. But there's a couple of questions I want to ask you. Why did you want to go back after ten years of the ten year anniversary? Was that did you feel like that that was part of your recovery.
Yeah, definitely. I felt it was a big milestone, you know, getting through ten years and I was still having surgery by then and I still have it now, you know, but nothing life saving. And I felt that the main reason I went back was to you know, honor the memory of some of the people, you know, I felt that that was the very least I could do. And also to confront it. You know, in my head, that
place was a scary, awful, gruesome place. And then to go there and realize life goes on, my friend, that's in your head. People were having peanut coladas.
And you're going back to the same rooftop bars.
Exactly, of course, right, everyone's happy life has moved on, right, And so it was just to me when I was there and I went back, I was like, it kind of clicked that, you know, the only person really holding me back is myself and my memories in my head. Right, so they've all moved on and this place life goes on here and it actually is an idyllic, beautiful place, And it was just this one moment in time, right
and life has moved on. It gave me perspective. You know, this giant tree that I remember looking at all day was actually not giant at all. You know, those sorts of things that were just exaggerated in my mind. And yeah, it was a terrible thing. But to go there and just sort of pay respects to, you know, the wife of the man that helped me, and that was good. It was sort of cathartic.
Actually, I love that.
One final question, the twenty year anniversary is coming up. Yeah, have you got any plans for that?
And if you have, what there? Yeah?
Well, I mean I probably would have gone back to Thailand had nothing else to do, but I have a beautiful friend who's getting married in Bali actually, so I mean, what you know I have I've been so lucky that I've been able to have three children since the tsunami and the idea of just having a beautiful family holiday with them and celebrating life. Yeah. Absolutely, and it's sort of you know a lot of people said you can
do something, and I don't know. Maybe I probably will call the people who helped me and whatever and just say, hey, twenty years makes me feel ancient. But yeah, it really does date you, like people can literally work out your age. So I think I'll just sort of enjoy, you know, my family and just sort of, you know, really think about just how lucky I am and you know, how function has returned to my life and how grateful I am for that.
Well, Rebecca, thank you ever so much for sharing your story with us.
Inspirational. It just goes to prove what.
The mind and the body is really really capable of, you know, especially when you're thrust into a situation that you can't control, how it goes into survival mode, how it protects you.
Thank you so much.
Thanks sam.
My guest today was Rebecca Giles. Thanks for listening to this episode of head Game. If you enjoyed it, we share it with a friend. I'm at Middleton. See you again next time.