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Baby Beatriz
Joy is born at a makeshift medical center in the storm damaged
central
Philippine city of Tacloban on November 11 2013 (AFP, Jason Gutierrez)
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Tacloban —
Emily Sagalis cried tears of joy after giving birth to a "miracle"
girl in a typhoon-ravaged Philippine city, then named the baby after her mother
who went missing in the storm.
The girl
was born Monday in a destroyed airport compound that was turned into a
makeshift medical centre, with her bed a piece of dirty plywood resting amid
dirt, broken glass, twisted metal, nails and other debris.
"She
is so beautiful. I will name her Bea Joy in honour of my mother, Beatriz,"
Sagalis, 21, whispered shortly after giving birth.
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A medic
tends to Emily Sagalis shortly after
she gives birth inside a destroyed
building
in the central Philippine city of Tacloban
on November 11 2013 (AFP,
Jason Gutierrez)
|
Sagalis
said her mother was swept away when giant waves generated by Super Typhoon
Haiyan surged into their home near Tacloban city, the capital of Leyte province
which was one of the worst-hit areas, and she has not been seen since.
More than
10,000 people are believed to have died in Leyte, and many hundreds on other
islands across the central Philippines, which would make Haiyan the country's
worst recorded natural disaster.
But, in the
most tragic of circumstances, Bea Joy restarted the cycle of life.
"She
is my miracle. I had thought I would die with her still inside me when high
waves came and took us all away," she said, as her teary-eyed husband,
Jobert, clasped the baby and a volunteer held an IV drip above them.
The husband
said the first wave that came carried their wooden home in the coastal town of
San Jose many metres inland, washing all of the family outside.
He said the
entire community had been washed away, with the once picturesque area replaced
by rubble and the bloated remains of people and animals.
"We
are supposed to be celebrating today, but we are also mourning our dead,"
Jobert said.
He said it
was God's will that he found his wife floating amongst the debris.
They were
carried away for what felt like hours until the water subsided, and they found
themselves sheltering in a school building where other mud-soaked and injured
survivors had huddled.
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Emily
Sagalis, 21, lies exhaused on a debris
filled floor at a makeshift medical
facility
after giving birth in Tacloban, on November
11 2013 (AFP, Jason
Gutierrez)
|
The couple and
their surviving neighbours subsisted there until Monday morning only on bottles
of water they found among the debris. Jobert said he knew that his wife was
about to give birth any day, but no help or aid had come.
"She
began labour at 5:00 am (Monday) so we had to walk several kilometres before a
truck driver hitched us a ride," he said.
The young
military doctor who attended to her, Captain Victoriano Sambale, said the new
mother had already broken her waters by the time the couple stepped inside the
building, and then developed bleeding during the delivery.
"This
is the first time we have delivered a baby here. The baby is fine and we have
managed to stop the bleeding of the mother," he said.
However, he
cautioned doctors were extremely concerned about potential infections that
could easily be caught amid the unsterile conditions, with the medical team
almost powerless now to help her.
"Definitely
the mother is still in danger from infection and sepsis (septicemia). So we
need to give her intravenous antibiotics. Unfortunately we ran out of even the
oral antibiotics yesterday," Sambale said.
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