Hands Up 4 New Zealand • Earthquake fundraiser

If you have a personal story relevant to the Earthquake or travels in New Zealand, we would like to share them here. Please use the comment area below to tell us your story.

Here’s one to get you started, from Jeff McIntosh, who wrote to us here at HandsUp4NZ, from Morden, Manitoba.

My daughter survived as well. It’s an un-describable and helpless feeling when a Father receives a cell call from his youngest daughter being thrown around by mother nature, the ground coming up from under her feet, yelling, “What should I do Dad?”. For a man that hangs his hat on being a hardcore Harley type guy, it literally felt like someone cut my bloody arms off. By far the scariest and most helpless moment of my life and an incident that I find very hard to think about let alone talk about.

We almost lost Jessi. We owe Jessis safety & well being to 3 NZlanders. Shirley Hall, who took Jessis hand and led her away to safety down by the water and Lisa and Andrew Adams from Oxford NZ, who latched on to Jessi and got her out of the area and who gave Jessi a place to stay when all she had was the clothes on her back, her wallet and her passport. All the rest of her belongings are long gone, buried in the rubble of the hostel she was staying in, along with 2 young men from Israel that Jessi had met during her short stay there, who were not as fortunate as Jess. They did not survive. I’m not a religious man, but I do know, something big was watching over Jessi that day down by the Cathedral, which she had just left then scooted over to the Library when the earthquake hit.

I have no doubt Christchurch will recover quickly and again become the beautiful City is once was. We hope to visit there soon to shake the hands of those people that cared for our daughter in her time of need. ~Jeff & Tanis McIntosh~ Morden Mb

PS, Jessi’s Interview with Larry Updike can her heard here: http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=10320157

There is a small Mention of Jess from the Mayor Of ChristChurch in a press conference here: http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/podcasts/audio/02181526.mp3

Your story?

We would love to hear your story, short or long. It might be about a friend or family member affected by the Earthquake, a rescue story, how folks are coping after the event or even your experience travelling in the area some time back.

We will read them all and take some and might make them into posts on the home page of the web site.