PHUKET, Thailand (29 Dec 2004) -- She was always afraid of the ocean. When a friend invited Lea Kreidie on a Christmas break trip to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, then Thailand, to learn scuba diving, Kreidie hesitated. I don't like the water, Kreidie told her mother. I don't like being submerged. It hurts my ears. Little did she know. Kreidie's mother, Lina Kreidie, teaches political science at UC Irvine. She took a logical approach to her daughter's phobia. "I told her to do it and overcome this fear," Lina Kreidie said Tuesday from her Laguna Niguel home. "I said, 'Go. You will visit different countries. It will be wonderful.'" On Dec. 21, Kreidie, a 21-year-old studying communications and political science at UC Berkeley, headed to Malaysia with her friend's family. They spent time in Kuala Lumpur - a gleaming fusion of the ancient and the modern - and then headed to the idyllic Thai island of Phi Phi , a tropical paradise of soaring limestone cliffs, powdery white beaches and brilliant crystalline waters. Swallowing her fear, Kreidie checked into a hotel and began working on her scuba-diving certification. The world beneath the waves was a revelation. It was a glittering jewel box of coral reefs and fish that gleamed like shards of stained glass - parrot fish, clown fish, ghost pipe fish, angel fish, sea snakes, silky sea anemones. "This island is like paradise," she wrote in an e-mail to her family on Saturday. "I do not know what heaven is like, but if it is anything like this, I will be content." The next day was going to be a very big day, her e-mail said: her final open-water dive. After that, she would be a certified scuba diver. She was feeling so much more comfortable in the water. She'd come such a long way. The next morning was Sunday. The morning a monstrous earthquake rocked the coast of Sumatra. The morning murderous waves began pulsing through the Indian Ocean and South China Sea. It was early Sunday in Laguna Niguel when Kreidie's family first heard the news of the devastation in Southeast Asia. An icy panic coursed through her mother. "I saw her island on TV," Lina Kreidie said. The seaside hotels were obliterated. "If she's scuba diving, she's gone," she said. "If she was in the hot tub, she's gone." Panic turned to hysteria. "I went crazy," Lina Kreidie said. Kreidie's sister Lana immediately called the American Embassy in Thailand. They had no information about Phi Phi; all communication lines were down. She kept calling and calling, and was eventually able to get a list of people taken to the hospital; Kreidie wasn't on it. Soon, friends and relatives crammed the house, phones welded to their ears. They called the Red Cross: nothing. They called every hotel on Phi Phi island they could reach; none listed Kreidie as a guest. They prayed she had made it to high ground. They prayed she wasn't in the water. When the tsunami swept through Sunday morning, Kreidie was in the open ocean, deep under water. The fish were acting strange. Rather than swimming away, the fish were bunching up below the divers, almost as if they were trying to find shelter. She felt pressure. They all started drifting. Then a mighty thrust launched her forward, sucked her down some 45 feet, and shot her up again. She lostcontrol over herbody, her movements, her orientation in space. The water, once so clear, became sandy and dense. But she didn't panic; she had so little experience diving that she didn't know how strange it was. | | A rescue worker looks at dead bodies at a relief center set up at a temple in Khao Lak, north of the devastated Thai tourist resort island of Phuket following the massive tsunami that slammed into the Thai coastline. When they finally surfaced, the instructor said that was no ordinary current. A Thai ship plucked them from the sea, and they soon learned they would not be going back to Phi Phi. There was nothing left of their hotel. No one knew if another rogue wave was on the way. Soon, they could see debris floating in the ocean - trees, food, bottles of water. "I was scared out of my mind," Kreidie said. Kreidie was transported to Phuket, then to Bangkok. Kind locals made sure she had food and a place to sleep. But she had no passport. No clothes. No money. She called home with a borrowed cell phone. About 4 p.m. Sunday, the phone rang in Laguna Niguel. Mom Lina Kreidie answered. She screamed, then fainted. Sister Lana grabbed the phone. Kreidie was in tears. "Lana, are you guys OK?" Kreidie said, worried about the agony she put her family through. "You should see around here," she said. "It's horrible. I've never seen anything like this." Sister Lana sprang to action, getting back on the phone with the embassy, faxing over proof of Kreidie's citizenship, explaining to her sister what she must do next. Today, Kreidie flies back to Kuala Lumpur. Her mother will meet her there, hug her so tight she won't be able to breathe and then accompany her back to America. "It's just unbelievable. It's a miracle," Lina Kreidie said. "I'm sure thousands are suffering now, and I feel for them. I told her, 'God has plan for you, and you have to help these people. You survived.' " Kreidie's first instinct was to say she'd never dive again. "But after thinking about it, I feel like I could handle anything at this point," she said from Bangkok. "I just dove in a tsunami. "I feel like I should definitely devote part of my life to helping people. I feel lucky to be alive; I can't even tell you. Somebody is watching me. I thank God every single moment." Sister Lana has learned a powerful lesson. "Your worst enemy will save your life," she said. "Face your fears and try to overcome, whether it be the ocean or anything. That's the moral of the story." |
