Local survives tsunami

Dave Brooks

It was surfing that helped motivate Patrick Clifford to travel

through Southeast Asia, and after last weekend’s tsunami, it was also

surfing that saved his life.

Clifford, a radiology intern at a hospital in Cochin, India was

working on a religious commune when the 9.0 earthquake centered in

the Indian Ocean sent massive waves toward the coasts of India, Sri

Lanka, Indonesia and Thailand.

As many as 150,000 people are believed to have been killed by the

disaster.

“He was on the 13th floor of his ashram when he said he saw sewage

begin to spill back into the streets and then a massive wall of water

coming in from a distance,” his father Tom Clifford said. “He

immediately ran out in the street into chest-high waters and began

helping pull people out. He said it was chaos.”

Tom Clifford said his son’s bravery had partially to do with his

love of surfing. Every June, Patrick Clifford, now 27 years old,

would surf near the Newport Pier while his grandmother, Gloria

Clifford, looked on.

“I had him every summer, and I made him the water baby that he

is,” she said. “I wore him out that way so he would go to sleep at

night.”

Patrick Clifford even joined the Newport Harbor High surf team and

had planned a side trip from India to Sri Lanka.

When the tsunami hit, Patrick Clifford was in Quilon, a small

island on the western side of India, shielded from the full velocity

of the tsunami. The sheer force of the event led tides to wrap around

the peninsula and flood city streets in Quilon with chest-high

waters.

According to the official website for the region of Kerala, where

Quilon is located, about 175 people in the area died as a result of

the tsunami.

Gloria Clifford said she was very worried about her grandson when

she heard about the tsunami. For five days there was no word from

him, but on Thursday he was able to call his father using a satellite

phone and give a brief description of his run-in with the tidal wave.

Beyond that one call, Tom Clifford doesn’t expect to be in contact

with his son again for quite some time because of damage to the

area’s communication system. Patrick Clifford was not available for

an interview.

Costa Mesa resident Steve Abrams, 37, was visiting Phuket,

Thailand when the massive wave hit. In an interview with the Daily

Pilot, Abrams described how he and a friend helped pull people out of

the water.

Patrick Clifford grew up in Newport Beach and enjoyed surfing from

a young age. After graduating high school, he worked for his father

for seven years as an inspector for Pacific Video Productions in

Newport Beach before moving to Tucson, Arizona to study radiology.

While living with his aunt and uncle, Jill and John Weiss, Patrick

Clifford became interested in transcendental medicine and a follower

of Hindu spiritual leader Mata Amritanandamayi, known worldwide as

Amma, “The Hugging Saint.”

Clifford began his two-year residency in India on Dec. 14, and

when he isn’t interning at a hospital founded by Amritanandamayi, he

assists at a religious commune, or ashram, on the island Quilon. He

is currently being sheltered at a nearby engineering school.

“He said his first order of business is going to be repairing the

ashram,” his father said.

Tom Clifford described his son as a personable and friendly guy

who always put others before himself.

“Part of his religion is the idea that one should be a servant to

humanity,” he said.

“It’s like he didn’t think about himself when he ran out to help

those people.”