Local man tells of tsunami terror

Jeff Benson

A local man was in the right place at the wrong time Sunday.

Steve Abrams, 37, of Costa Mesa, saved at least one life and

possibly a dozen others, with the help of a friend, as a tsunami

pounded Thailand’s shores.

Abrams, who was vacationing in Phuket with five friends, said via

phone in Thailand that he and a friend grabbed as many people as they

could and put them on top of cars, above the water line.

Two were 4- or 5-year-old Thai girls. He put one on top of a car,

but when he went back for the other one, she wasn’t there, he said.

“It was complete chaos when the first one hit,” he said, referring

to the first of three waves that hit within a two-hour span.

The second came 30 minutes later, and then another an hour after

that.

“Everyone who spoke English was saying, ‘Run for the hills,

another one is coming!’ It was mayhem.”

So many people were trying to hold on to him, he had to brush

people off to help those that he could.

“All of a sudden the water pulled back, fish started flopping

down, and large sailboats dropped from the ground,” he said.

“It’s like a rug being pulled from underneath you.”

The tsunami that swept through Thailand, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and

India was caused by a 9.0 earthquake in the Indian Ocean.

As of Thursday evening, 117,000 people reportedly had died in the

devastation.

Abrams survived the catastrophe with some bumps and scrapes --

especially to his feet -- and some Power Bars his mother, Marilyn

Abrams of Tustin, packed for him.

He was at Thana Patong Resort in Phuket on Thursday, with plans to

fly to Pattaya, Thailand, and then back to the United States.

But it could have been a whole different story.

Abrams was on the second floor of his hotel when the tsunami hit,

he said.

He had planned to go jet-skiing near what’s known as James Bond

Island with some acquaintances he’d met on the trip who had traveled

to Thailand from Europe.

But Abrams decided not to go immediately, opting instead to eat

breakfast and then change into some swim trunks, he said.

He was changing in his room when the first wave hit. By the third

wave, he was underwater.

He wondered Thursday what happened to the group of Europeans going

jet-skiing.

“I haven’t seen them anywhere,” he said. “I have a feeling they

perished.”

The four friends that he went on the vacation with survived, he

said.

“He said he left for paradise, but he ended up in hell,” Marilyn

Abrams said.

In early communications with her son after the disaster, it didn’t

sound to Marilyn Abrams that he could, or even wanted to return just

yet, choosing instead to help other victims.

“I have never seen devastation, death, decay and thousands of

injured people in need of medical attention like this before,” Steve

Abrams wrote in an e-mail to his mother on Wednesday.

“I have helped where I could, but it has put me at more risk every

time.”

That risk had his mother terrified.

“It’s like the agony and the ecstasy right now,” she said.

“I’m so glad to have my grandchildren visiting now, but on the

other hand, I’m terrified of something happening to my son. I feel

like I just want to protect him.

“There are all these feelings going through me, but I want to know

he’s safe.

“I’d like him to continue to help people, but I also want to make

sure he’s all right. I’m very frightened.”

The two spoke by phone on Thursday.

Marilyn Abrams said she’s afraid of the possibility of her son

catching a disease or being robbed.

“I asked him what the government was doing, and he said that the

problem was that they weren’t doing anything at the time,” she said.

“But he said he just couldn’t believe this -- that there were dead

bodies piled on the beach and people being washed away.”

Steve Abrams, an equipment salesman for Cingular/AT&T; Wireless,

echoed that Thursday.

“It’s sad, because lifeless, helpless people were swept out to the

ocean never to come back,” he said.

* JEFF BENSON covers education and may be reached at (714)

966-4617 or by e-mail at jeff.benson@latimes.com.