Sarla Chand leads a seminar at the 2009 Pacific Regional School of Christian Mission in Powell, Wyoming. A UMNS photo by Paul Jeffrey, Response.

A UMNS Report
By Linda Bloom*
UPDATED 1:00 PM EST Jan. 15, 2010

A piece of debris hit Chand on the head, and all the former staff member of the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries said she could think of was not to give up. “If I didn’t keep moving, I think I’d be dead,” Chand said Jan. 15 in an interview on “ABC News.”

Chand was able to move through the debris to escape the hotel, and her quick action in bringing back help is credited with saving the lives of several colleagues, including three United Methodist mission leaders.

“Apparently, Sarla was small enough to negotiate (the space) and find her way around inside the hotel,” said Aaron Gulley, son of the Rev. James Gulley, a United Methodist who also was trapped in the hotel.

Chand was able to make contact with rescue personnel and lead them back to the others, James Gulley told his son.

When the earthquake hit, Chand and two other staff members from IMA World Health were meeting at the hotel with the Rev. Sam Dixon, top executive of the United Methodist Committee on Relief, the Rev. Clinton Rabb, head of Mission Volunteers, and Gulley, an UMCOR consultant. The other two IMA World Health workers were Rick Santos, the agency’s president, and Ann Varghese, program officer for Haiti.

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Five of the six humanitarian officials were rescued. Rescue workers early Jan. 15 still were working to extricate Rabb from the debris.

The group had been in the Montana Hotel lobby when the earthquake occurred. Afterward, most of them were trapped in enclosed spaces, and the legs of Dixon and Rabb were pinned by a concrete beam.

Aaron Gulley said his father told him that other people had found them earlier and said they were coming back with help, but never returned. “They thought they were forgotten,” he added. “He said they did a lot of praying.”

His father said Chand saved their lives, Aaron Gulley said.

All, including Chand, were grateful to be alive.

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“For us not to die with that magnitude of an earthquake, to me, that is second life,” Chand told ABC.

*Bloom is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in New York.

News media contact: Linda Bloom, New York, (646) 369-3759 or newsdesk@umcom.org.

Audio

Aaron Gulley, son of trapped UMCOR consultant:
“They prayed and sang hymns to keep their spirits positive.”

Video

BBC: Team rescues Sarla Chand

slideshow

Photos from team in Haiti

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Resources

Facebook: Haiti Earthquake Hotel Montana 

UMCOR Field Office: Haiti

Haiti Emergency, UMCOR Advance #418325

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