Team News Riveting
Istanbul, February 16
When his only bottle of water ran out, the 62-year-old diabetic man survived being buried under the debris following devastating earthquake by drinking his own pee.
Hüseyin Berber, a 62-year-old diabetic, survived 187 hours after the walls of his ground-floor apartment were propped up by a fridge and a cabinet, leaving him an armchair to sit in and a rug to keep him warm after the killer earthquake hit Turkey on February 6. He had a single bottle of water, and when that ran out, Berber drank his own urine.
Admitted in Mersin City Hospital on Tuesday, Berber recalled how the 15-story building collapsed in the city of Antakya in southern Hatay province trapping him inside. Half the buildings in the city were either destroyed or heavily damaged.
Recalling the incident, he said he had been surrounded by relatives in different rooms in his apartment, all of whom he believed managed to survive. “When the earthquake hit, I immediately stood up, my grandchild was sleeping next to me. I looked around, my son turned on a light, took a flashlight and said ‘Father, it’s an earthquake!’ In a second tremor, the ceiling collapsed, but it did not hit me. I immediately crouched and sat down. The wall fell over on to fridge and the cabinet. I was stuck there,” he said
“There was a rug. I took that and put it over me … I saw there was an armchair, I climbed over it took the rug and sat there. “I shouted, shouted and shouted. No one could hear me. I shouted so much that my throat hurt. Our son, I think took out the kids … we were five people, my son and I were in the bedroom.” He said he found his diabetes medicine and a bottle of water on the floor. “An hour later, I took (the water bottle) and drank it. Apologies, I peed in it and let it rest. I drank it when it got cold. I saved myself with that,” Berber recalled.
Çağlar Aksoy Çolak, a doctor at Mersin City Hospital, said they only provided “supportive treatment” for Berber. “He has no broken bones; his general status is fairly good … He actually took care of himself down there.”
A member of the Turkish medical rescue team said people under the rubble can generally survive up to five days. “Anything beyond five days is a miracle,” he said.
