This is the story of Sally Gordon an Indian Ocean Tsunami's survival.
After loosing her best friends in the terrifying disaster, her husband left for Thailand leaving her lonely and sad.
Read the hole story from Daily Mail on line.
"I lost three best friends and almost died in the tsunami... how could my husband then walk out on me?
By Natasha Courtenay-Smith
Last updated at 9:33 AM on 24th December 2009
There are many survivors of the Boxing Day 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami who speak of the terrifying roar of the wave as it approached.
But the only sound that Sally Gordon can recall as the nine-metre wall of water engulfed her and carried her for one mile through the Thai village of Khao Lak is total silence, followed by the strangled sound of her own body as she was finally able to gasp for air.
'I was taken under water through buildings, trees and electricity pylons,' says Sally. 'I was hitting debris and at one stage I was trapped underneath a floating car. In the end, I knew I was drowning and I just couldn't go on any longer.
Lucky to be alive: Sally Gordon hit unimaginable disaster when the tsunami hit Thailand in 2004
'My last memory of being in the water was saying prayers for my four sons. As my own life ebbed from me, I prayed for my children to survive.'
But then, as quickly as the wave had submerged her, Sally was deposited a mile inland, completely naked, the clothes having been torn from her body by the force of the water.
It was an ordeal that lasted just a few minutes, but the ramifications have continued to this very day. She lost her three best friends in that tidal wave: Melanie Clough, 46; Jane Holland, the 49-year-old daughter of film director Richard Attenborough; and Pippa Rae, 40.
'In the months that followed, I felt mentally numb,' says Sally. 'I had lost three of my closest friends, and close friends lost their children too.
'Melanie and I had been best friends since we were two, we'd been to school together and were godparents to each other's children.
'I'd met Jane through Melanie, and Pippa was another close friend. We all regularly met for lunches and to go shopping, and over the previous 12 months, had holidayed in the Caribbean and Turkey together.
'I have a photo of Jane, Melanie and me which I treasure. It's the three of us standing on a beach in the Caribbean looking very windswept. I still look at the photo every day and ask myself why I'm alive and they are both gone.'
What happened to her sons that day still arouses a different kind of disbelief.
And in the wake of the huge emotional fallout from the tsunami, Sally's husband left her, a fact that even now feels raw.
The trip to Khao Lak was meant to be Christmas in paradise, says Sally, 52, from Emsworth in Hampshire.
She and her husband Chris, who together had built up and sold the luxury sailing holiday company Sunsail, had joined Jane and her husband Mike, and Melanie and her husband Simon and another couple in buying a plot of land in Khao Lak, an hour north of Puket.
Submerged: A boat passes by a damaged hotel at Ton Sai Bay on Phi Phi Island, Thailand, looking for survivors of the giant wave
Simon had then overseen the building of four five-bedroom villas on the beachfront.
With the villas completed, they'd travelled to the area for Christmas, in a party of 34 adults and children.
Sally hasn't spoken about her experiences before, but as the fifth anniversary arrives, finally feels ready to reflect on what she and her family suffered and to pay tribute to her lost friends.
'We'd all been so happy on the day the tsunami struck,' says Sally, who has four sons, Alex, 23, Tom, 22, Charles, 19 and Sebastian, 15.
'The villas really were beautiful, each had their own pool and they all looked straight out over the sea.'
Sally was on the beach close to her villa with her sons Alex and Charles when they saw the first signs of the devastation that was about to occur.
'We would normally have still been asleep but Alex had arrived the day earlier and got everyone up as he was jetlagged,' says Sally. 'We were walking to get some breakfast, when we noticed everyone was looking at the sea, and that our brand new powerboat, which was anchored in front of the villa, had run aground.'
Looking at the horizon, Sally and her sons could see a wall of water. She recalls: 'I rang my husband, who was playing golf with our two other sons and some friends, and said: "The boat's gone aground."
In a matter of seconds, the nine-metre wave went straight over our heads, washing the villas completely away
He said that wasn't possible as it was anchored really well. 'Then I said: "Well, this is strange because there's a big wave coming."
'I remember saying to him that it was really weird, but all the water had gone out to sea, and there were fish jumping off the sand.'
Sally was joined on the beach by Jane and Melanie, who had come out of their villas to see what was happening.
'We had no idea what this wave was, but we weren't hugely frightened,' says Sally. 'We decided it was some sort of tidal wave, and concluded it might come right up the beach. It seems ridiculous now, but I remember we said we should shut the windows and that we might get a bit wet from spray from the wave.
'Melanie and Jane went back inside their villas, my sons were heading to a nearby hotel and I ran behind our villa and got inside a large storage cupboard there. My only thought at the time was that I didn't want my camera to get wet.
'I was in this cupboard for quite a few minutes when suddenly it filled up with water to about knee level and the lights went off,' recalls Sally.
'I thought this was the wave, and had no idea it was in fact a surge of water with the main wave following directly behind. I opened the door to take a photo as I thought my husband wouldn't believe the water had come in so far, when a matter of seconds later, the nine-metre wave went straight over our heads, washing the villas completely away.
'My oldest son, Alex, was by now on the roof of a nearby hotel and watched as the water engulfed our villas.
'Fifteen minutes later, when it receded, he realised the villas were completely gone.
'He also saw the wave directly hit my third son Charles, who was still standing on the beach.'
Miraculous stories of survival: Sally with her four sons (from left) Sebastian, Tom, Charles and Alex who all survived the tsunami
One can only imagine the horror that went through Alex's mind as he watched what seemed to be his family being wiped out.
Sally's next completely clear memory is of finding herself a mile inland, naked. For the next hour, she lapsed in and out of consciousness until she was found, along with Melanie's daughter Clemmie, now 19, by some locals.
Fearing another wave was coming, they carried Sally and Clemmie up a nearby hillside, where they spent the night out in the open in a forest.
'By this stage, I was delirious,' says Sally, who was provided with some covering for her battered, naked body.
'As a result of my organs and tissues absorbing water through my lungs, my body had swollen up - I looked like the Michelin man. All the time I kept saying: "My children, my children, they were on the beach."
'The people who rescued us were mouthing to each other that my children were dead.'
In fact, every member of Sally's family had their own miraculous tale of survival. The
call Sally had made in fact saved the lives of her husband and sons Tom and Sebastian.
I was so bruised and battered my family didn't recognise me
Diverted from their game, they ran to the edge of the golf course and saw the wave on the horizon.
Thanks to this early warning, her husband, her youngest son Sebastian and other members of their party were able to scramble on to the roof of the golf club, from where they watched the wave pass underneath them.
Her second son Tom, meanwhile, ran a mile inland and survived by shimmying barefoot up a palm tree and clinging on.
Alex was safe on the roof of the next door hotel and Charles, who was hit directly by the wall of water, was saved by a Swedish boy who pulled him up a tree.
When that tree fell down, they survived by clinging on to dead bodies and electricity pylons until the water receded.
The next day, locals bought Sally down from the hillside, and she was taken to a cottage hospital in Thai Muang, 30km south.
By this point, the rest of her family had found each other and were frantically searching for her, and any other survivors in their party.
In hospital, Sally was too unwell even to confirm her identity - she was later told by a doctor that she had been just two seconds from death.
'My husband turned up at the hospital I was at with my second son Tom,' says Sally. 'I was so bruised and battered that they didn't recognise me and were about to leave, when Tom pointed at me and said "Daddy, do you think this might be Mummy?"
'I was in such shock and so out of it I almost didn't know who I was, but my husband looked at me, and shook me, and I was able to speak. That was the first time I realised my family were still alive.'
Devastation: A tourist looks at the damage on Khoa Lak beach in Patong, the area where Sally and her group were staying
The fact that only six members of their party died in a village where more than 5,000 people were killed is, says Sally, thanks to amazing coincidences.
'On a normal day, everyone would have been on the beach or in bed at the time the wave hit,' she says. 'The only reason everyone was up and out of the house was because Alex had woken everyone up, and a number of people had arranged to play golf.
'It was lucky I phoned the golf course, or my husband wouldn't have looked out to sea. It's lucky that I opened the door of that cupboard to take a picture, or I would have been trapped inside by the water pressure.'
The next day, Sally was taken to hospital in Bangkok.
'I was attached to all sorts of drips and could hardly think straight. I was in a state of total shock, but I do remember watching Sky News and seeing all the devastation.
WHO KNEW?
Tsunamis used to be called ‘tidal waves’, but the term has fallen out of use, as they have nothing to do with tides but are usually caused by earthquakes
'But really, it was too big to get my head around. I still feel that way now sometimes.'
On her return to the UK, Sally was put under the care of lung specialist and a tropical disease specialist.
'I was unwell for a long time,' she says. 'I'd inhaled so much mud and silt that my lung function was massively impaired and every breath I took hurt. I was still coughing up mud and silt six months later.
'I also had to have an operation on my sinus and ear canals to clear them of silt.
'I was suffering from bacterial infections too and was on a cocktail of about 15 drugs.
'And every day, all I could think about was Melanie, Jane, Pippa and my friend Sally, who had lost her daughter Holly, who was 21.
'Jane's daughter Lucy had died too - she was only 15 - along with her mother-in-law. I felt desperate for the families left behind.
'My mind churned over what had happened again and again, and was full of what-ifs. I found it very hard for weeks to even eat. I just got up, did what I was told to do and went to bed again.
'I remember I just used to sit at the kitchen table and stare at the wall. My mother pretty much moved in to look after me.'
The following March, the family made an emotional return to Khao Lak on the advice of Sally's doctor.
New life: Sally's husband, Chris, left, walked out on her to found a charity in Thailand
Through going back, they hoped to try and understand what had happened to them and say goodbye to those they had lost. They also visited the tree Tom had clung to.
But shortly after they returned from the sad pilgrimage, Sally's world was again devastated when her husband left her.
'Chris literally got up one day and announced he was going to live in Thailand,' says Sally. 'It was a bolt out of the blue. I was still very unwell and felt completely destroyed.
'To this day, I don't really understand what happened and neither does Chris, but his departure was caused by the emotional fallout from the tsunami.
'Whenever I ask why he left, he simply says he wasn't thinking straight. With the benefit of time, I think we were all suffering from survivor's guilt and all incredibly traumatised.
'We'd realised how fragile life was, and I think he felt he really wanted to live in Thailand.
'But at the time, I was devastated. Our marriage had been a happy one. I'd been so thankful that our family had survived in one piece where so many others hadn't. We'd been given another chance, and now he was destroying it.
'With the tsunami, then Chris leaving, I don't think I was able to think straight for an entire year. I don't think I would have coped without the support of my friends and family, and therapy.
'I felt very angry, angry that friends' lives had been lost, angry I'd had to fight so hard for my own life and angry that Chris had gone.'
Chris founded a charity called the Khao Lak Community Appeal. In the first ten months, he raised a million pounds to help local children and build a new school in the memory of the friends they'd lost.
Although Chris still lives in Thailand, where he now has a new partner, who is Thai, he and Sally have stayed friends and Chris is spending Christmas in Hampshire with Sally and their sons.
Boxing Day, which marks the five-year anniversary of the tsunami, will be, says Sally, a time for quiet reflection.
'What happened has changed our lives, but we've all learned that you're only here once. My family and I were saved that day, and even now we have no idea why.
'Without a doubt we were given a second chance, and we're determined to make the most of it.' Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1238134/I-lost-best-friends-died-tsunami--husband-walk-me.html#ixzz0asAhmRPJ
By Natasha Courtenay-Smith
Last updated at 9:33 AM on 24th December 2009
There are many survivors of the Boxing Day 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami who speak of the terrifying roar of the wave as it approached.
But the only sound that Sally Gordon can recall as the nine-metre wall of water engulfed her and carried her for one mile through the Thai village of Khao Lak is total silence, followed by the strangled sound of her own body as she was finally able to gasp for air.
'I was taken under water through buildings, trees and electricity pylons,' says Sally. 'I was hitting debris and at one stage I was trapped underneath a floating car. In the end, I knew I was drowning and I just couldn't go on any longer.
Lucky to be alive: Sally Gordon hit unimaginable disaster when the tsunami hit Thailand in 2004
'My last memory of being in the water was saying prayers for my four sons. As my own life ebbed from me, I prayed for my children to survive.'
But then, as quickly as the wave had submerged her, Sally was deposited a mile inland, completely naked, the clothes having been torn from her body by the force of the water.
It was an ordeal that lasted just a few minutes, but the ramifications have continued to this very day. She lost her three best friends in that tidal wave: Melanie Clough, 46; Jane Holland, the 49-year-old daughter of film director Richard Attenborough; and Pippa Rae, 40.
'In the months that followed, I felt mentally numb,' says Sally. 'I had lost three of my closest friends, and close friends lost their children too.
'Melanie and I had been best friends since we were two, we'd been to school together and were godparents to each other's children.
'I'd met Jane through Melanie, and Pippa was another close friend. We all regularly met for lunches and to go shopping, and over the previous 12 months, had holidayed in the Caribbean and Turkey together.
'I have a photo of Jane, Melanie and me which I treasure. It's the three of us standing on a beach in the Caribbean looking very windswept. I still look at the photo every day and ask myself why I'm alive and they are both gone.'
What happened to her sons that day still arouses a different kind of disbelief.
And in the wake of the huge emotional fallout from the tsunami, Sally's husband left her, a fact that even now feels raw.
The trip to Khao Lak was meant to be Christmas in paradise, says Sally, 52, from Emsworth in Hampshire.
She and her husband Chris, who together had built up and sold the luxury sailing holiday company Sunsail, had joined Jane and her husband Mike, and Melanie and her husband Simon and another couple in buying a plot of land in Khao Lak, an hour north of Puket.
Submerged: A boat passes by a damaged hotel at Ton Sai Bay on Phi Phi Island, Thailand, looking for survivors of the giant wave
Simon had then overseen the building of four five-bedroom villas on the beachfront.
With the villas completed, they'd travelled to the area for Christmas, in a party of 34 adults and children.
Sally hasn't spoken about her experiences before, but as the fifth anniversary arrives, finally feels ready to reflect on what she and her family suffered and to pay tribute to her lost friends.
'We'd all been so happy on the day the tsunami struck,' says Sally, who has four sons, Alex, 23, Tom, 22, Charles, 19 and Sebastian, 15.
'The villas really were beautiful, each had their own pool and they all looked straight out over the sea.'
Sally was on the beach close to her villa with her sons Alex and Charles when they saw the first signs of the devastation that was about to occur.
'We would normally have still been asleep but Alex had arrived the day earlier and got everyone up as he was jetlagged,' says Sally. 'We were walking to get some breakfast, when we noticed everyone was looking at the sea, and that our brand new powerboat, which was anchored in front of the villa, had run aground.'
Looking at the horizon, Sally and her sons could see a wall of water. She recalls: 'I rang my husband, who was playing golf with our two other sons and some friends, and said: "The boat's gone aground."
In a matter of seconds, the nine-metre wave went straight over our heads, washing the villas completely away
He said that wasn't possible as it was anchored really well. 'Then I said: "Well, this is strange because there's a big wave coming."
'I remember saying to him that it was really weird, but all the water had gone out to sea, and there were fish jumping off the sand.'
Sally was joined on the beach by Jane and Melanie, who had come out of their villas to see what was happening.
'We had no idea what this wave was, but we weren't hugely frightened,' says Sally. 'We decided it was some sort of tidal wave, and concluded it might come right up the beach. It seems ridiculous now, but I remember we said we should shut the windows and that we might get a bit wet from spray from the wave.
'Melanie and Jane went back inside their villas, my sons were heading to a nearby hotel and I ran behind our villa and got inside a large storage cupboard there. My only thought at the time was that I didn't want my camera to get wet.
'I was in this cupboard for quite a few minutes when suddenly it filled up with water to about knee level and the lights went off,' recalls Sally.
'I thought this was the wave, and had no idea it was in fact a surge of water with the main wave following directly behind. I opened the door to take a photo as I thought my husband wouldn't believe the water had come in so far, when a matter of seconds later, the nine-metre wave went straight over our heads, washing the villas completely away.
'My oldest son, Alex, was by now on the roof of a nearby hotel and watched as the water engulfed our villas.
'Fifteen minutes later, when it receded, he realised the villas were completely gone.
'He also saw the wave directly hit my third son Charles, who was still standing on the beach.'
Miraculous stories of survival: Sally with her four sons (from left) Sebastian, Tom, Charles and Alex who all survived the tsunami
One can only imagine the horror that went through Alex's mind as he watched what seemed to be his family being wiped out.
Sally's next completely clear memory is of finding herself a mile inland, naked. For the next hour, she lapsed in and out of consciousness until she was found, along with Melanie's daughter Clemmie, now 19, by some locals.
Fearing another wave was coming, they carried Sally and Clemmie up a nearby hillside, where they spent the night out in the open in a forest.
'By this stage, I was delirious,' says Sally, who was provided with some covering for her battered, naked body.
'As a result of my organs and tissues absorbing water through my lungs, my body had swollen up - I looked like the Michelin man. All the time I kept saying: "My children, my children, they were on the beach."
'The people who rescued us were mouthing to each other that my children were dead.'
In fact, every member of Sally's family had their own miraculous tale of survival. The
call Sally had made in fact saved the lives of her husband and sons Tom and Sebastian.
I was so bruised and battered my family didn't recognise me
Diverted from their game, they ran to the edge of the golf course and saw the wave on the horizon.
Thanks to this early warning, her husband, her youngest son Sebastian and other members of their party were able to scramble on to the roof of the golf club, from where they watched the wave pass underneath them.
Her second son Tom, meanwhile, ran a mile inland and survived by shimmying barefoot up a palm tree and clinging on.
Alex was safe on the roof of the next door hotel and Charles, who was hit directly by the wall of water, was saved by a Swedish boy who pulled him up a tree.
When that tree fell down, they survived by clinging on to dead bodies and electricity pylons until the water receded.
The next day, locals bought Sally down from the hillside, and she was taken to a cottage hospital in Thai Muang, 30km south.
By this point, the rest of her family had found each other and were frantically searching for her, and any other survivors in their party.
In hospital, Sally was too unwell even to confirm her identity - she was later told by a doctor that she had been just two seconds from death.
'My husband turned up at the hospital I was at with my second son Tom,' says Sally. 'I was so bruised and battered that they didn't recognise me and were about to leave, when Tom pointed at me and said "Daddy, do you think this might be Mummy?"
'I was in such shock and so out of it I almost didn't know who I was, but my husband looked at me, and shook me, and I was able to speak. That was the first time I realised my family were still alive.'
Devastation: A tourist looks at the damage on Khoa Lak beach in Patong, the area where Sally and her group were staying
The fact that only six members of their party died in a village where more than 5,000 people were killed is, says Sally, thanks to amazing coincidences.
'On a normal day, everyone would have been on the beach or in bed at the time the wave hit,' she says. 'The only reason everyone was up and out of the house was because Alex had woken everyone up, and a number of people had arranged to play golf.
'It was lucky I phoned the golf course, or my husband wouldn't have looked out to sea. It's lucky that I opened the door of that cupboard to take a picture, or I would have been trapped inside by the water pressure.'
The next day, Sally was taken to hospital in Bangkok.
'I was attached to all sorts of drips and could hardly think straight. I was in a state of total shock, but I do remember watching Sky News and seeing all the devastation.
WHO KNEW?
Tsunamis used to be called ‘tidal waves’, but the term has fallen out of use, as they have nothing to do with tides but are usually caused by earthquakes
'But really, it was too big to get my head around. I still feel that way now sometimes.'
On her return to the UK, Sally was put under the care of lung specialist and a tropical disease specialist.
'I was unwell for a long time,' she says. 'I'd inhaled so much mud and silt that my lung function was massively impaired and every breath I took hurt. I was still coughing up mud and silt six months later.
'I also had to have an operation on my sinus and ear canals to clear them of silt.
'I was suffering from bacterial infections too and was on a cocktail of about 15 drugs.
'And every day, all I could think about was Melanie, Jane, Pippa and my friend Sally, who had lost her daughter Holly, who was 21.
'Jane's daughter Lucy had died too - she was only 15 - along with her mother-in-law. I felt desperate for the families left behind.
'My mind churned over what had happened again and again, and was full of what-ifs. I found it very hard for weeks to even eat. I just got up, did what I was told to do and went to bed again.
'I remember I just used to sit at the kitchen table and stare at the wall. My mother pretty much moved in to look after me.'
The following March, the family made an emotional return to Khao Lak on the advice of Sally's doctor.
New life: Sally's husband, Chris, left, walked out on her to found a charity in Thailand
Through going back, they hoped to try and understand what had happened to them and say goodbye to those they had lost. They also visited the tree Tom had clung to.
But shortly after they returned from the sad pilgrimage, Sally's world was again devastated when her husband left her.
'Chris literally got up one day and announced he was going to live in Thailand,' says Sally. 'It was a bolt out of the blue. I was still very unwell and felt completely destroyed.
'To this day, I don't really understand what happened and neither does Chris, but his departure was caused by the emotional fallout from the tsunami.
'Whenever I ask why he left, he simply says he wasn't thinking straight. With the benefit of time, I think we were all suffering from survivor's guilt and all incredibly traumatised.
'We'd realised how fragile life was, and I think he felt he really wanted to live in Thailand.
'But at the time, I was devastated. Our marriage had been a happy one. I'd been so thankful that our family had survived in one piece where so many others hadn't. We'd been given another chance, and now he was destroying it.
'With the tsunami, then Chris leaving, I don't think I was able to think straight for an entire year. I don't think I would have coped without the support of my friends and family, and therapy.
'I felt very angry, angry that friends' lives had been lost, angry I'd had to fight so hard for my own life and angry that Chris had gone.'
Chris founded a charity called the Khao Lak Community Appeal. In the first ten months, he raised a million pounds to help local children and build a new school in the memory of the friends they'd lost.
Although Chris still lives in Thailand, where he now has a new partner, who is Thai, he and Sally have stayed friends and Chris is spending Christmas in Hampshire with Sally and their sons.
Boxing Day, which marks the five-year anniversary of the tsunami, will be, says Sally, a time for quiet reflection.
'What happened has changed our lives, but we've all learned that you're only here once. My family and I were saved that day, and even now we have no idea why.
'Without a doubt we were given a second chance, and we're determined to make the most of it.' Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1238134/I-lost-best-friends-died-tsunami--husband-walk-me.html#ixzz0asAhmRPJ
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