Hero Husband Helps Dig Out Wife in Haiti
A harrowing night ended in relief for a former CBS News employee who raced to Port au Prince after hearing his wife was trapped in rubble in the wake of the quake that leveled much of Haiti's capital.
Frank Thorp told "Early Show" co-anchor Magie Rodriguez he was in a town about 100 miles north of the city when the temblor shook the ground.
The quake, he says, wasn't so bad where he was, but when he heard how hard it had hit Port au Prince, he leaped into his car, knowing his wife, Jillian, was there. Six hours later, she was still stuck.
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"I don't often get emotional, and this is one of those moments where it's hard to describe how I was feeling," Frank said. "I mean, you know, I wasn't really sure whether she was OK. I had spoken to her on Skype for about ten seconds. She said she was trapped and that's all that I knew. It was a terrifying -- it was -- absolutely terrifying."
Jillian works for of the Haitian Ministries for the Diocese of Norwich, Conn. Jillian was in the organization's building when the quake came. Several others were trapped along with her.
"It's a three-story house," Frank says. "It's all made of concrete. The entire house has totally collapsed. It's all on the ground-level now." Jillian was under about a foot of concrete and other materials.
"Some of the Haitian workers here had broken through the ceiling," Thorp continued. "By the time that I got here, she was still trapped, but it was in time we were able to pull her out.
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" ... I jumped into the hole and I was able to see her wave her hand. I couldn't see her whole body. She was just waving. And I could hear her voice. And it was -- I mean, you know, I -- I couldn't hold it together, but all she was saying was, 'Just hold it together, hold it together, just get me out of here.'
"And, you know, we had to pull, you know, bricks and bricks and bricks and wood and doors and -- and metal away for at least -- I mean, at least an hour before we were able to get her and her coworker out as well."
Jillian was trapped ten hours in all.
At least one other person was still trapped as he spoke to Rodriguez, who also spoke with Frank Thorp's father-in-law and the head of the Haitian Ministries for the Diocese of Norwich, Conn.: