‘Dancing in the street’
Rachel Conley was the only American citizen killed in the Christchurch earthquake. Vicki Anderson tells her story.
Steve Conley was exhausted. It had been a hectic shift but that was typical at Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton, Ohio. His phone rang. It was his daughter, Rachel, calling from Christchurch, New Zealand.
It was February 22, 2011.
A few days earlier, on February 18, she’d celebrated her 27th birthday.
He had missed her but knew she’d had the time of her life on her two year world trip.
In just a few short weeks, she would be home.
‘‘Rachel called me a few hours before she and her friend, Jax, were supposed to leave Christchurch just to tell me their itinerary,’’ recalls Steve Conley from Ohio.
‘‘It was a horribly busy day. I worked in an inner city emergency room so she knew how things were there. We couldn’t talk long. I just had a strange feeling that I can’t really describe, it was a nervous, anxiety type of thing.’’
It is clear he has thought about that phone call often.
‘‘The last thing she said to me was: ‘I love you so much, Daddy!’,’’ he recalls.
‘‘I fretted over that call the rest of the day. I got off work shortly after, went home and went to bed. I woke up after a short bit, turned on my phone, checked the news and saw the headline about the earthquake and I knew, deep down inside, that she was gone.’’
Life’s a stage
Rachel Elizabeth Conley had a knack for making people feel special.
Lauren Conley describes her as ‘‘a light’’.
‘‘Officially we were step-sisters but we knew each other since we were five, there’s no step about it,’’ she says.
Energetic, fun-loving Rachel is deeply missed by her family – dad, Steve, her mother, Farris, her brother, Sam, her step-father, Joe, and step-mum, Deb.
‘‘A coffee lover, the queen of hearts, karaoke pro, music connoisseur, ‘mom’ to many and lover of simple things. Rachel filled a room with her infectious personality and brought song, dance and laughter to everyone who was lucky enough to cross paths with her.’’
Her friends and family describe Rachel as ‘‘obsessed’’ with musicals so it was no surprise when, after she graduated from her local school, Beavercreek High School, Rachel decided to attend the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York.
‘‘She moved to New York City right after high school and took to it like a duck to water,’’ says Steve Conley.
‘‘Living in New York opened her world to people from all over the world.’’
Music was Rachel’s passion and forged a unique bond.
‘‘It was not unusual for her to call me to talk about a new band that she heard and vice versa,’’ he says. ‘‘Some of my favourite memories were made when Rach would come to visit and we would spend time in the kitchen preparing food and cooking while she played DJ using her iPod.’’
In October 2009, Rachel put her masters degree in health care administration on hold, ‘‘purged her possessions’’ and left her life in New York to go on what her sister Lauren calls a ‘‘whirlwind adventure’’.
That adventure took her to nine countries up until February 22, 2011, the day she found herself in Christchurch.
Besties on tour
It was the chance to work on The
Hobbit movie which originally lured American Jackie [Kinder] McMillan – known to friends as ‘‘Gypsy Jax’’ or simply ‘‘Jax’’ – to New Zealand.
‘‘Rachel and I travelled separately to New Zealand, I’m American, too – sorry about Trump, by the way – and we ended up in Wellington,’’ says McMillan.
‘‘We met at a hostel she was working at and at which I was staying for a week or so. I originally had come over to work on The Hobbit, but with all the drama and delayed production and such, I found a lovely job as a nanny in Miramar instead.’’
The friends would meet up regularly for coffee or sit on Wellington’s Cuba Street and eat sushi.
‘‘We partied, laughed, explored and really lived. Rachel was an incredible person. She loved to dance, sing and knit. She worked at Toi Whakaari/TeWhaea drama/ dance school in Wellington. She was the musical theatre type, and I, on more than one occasion, had to drag her off an empty stage or open dance floor.’’
With their working holiday visas due to expire in February 2011, the pair decided to check out the South Island sights before leaving the country.
They would go to Australia to see friends before going to Thailand for 10 days. After years apart, Rachel would then return home for a muchanticipated family reunion.
Rachel and Jackie arrived in Christchurch late on February 21.
‘‘We only really had time for dinner in town, then bed,’’ says Jackie. ‘‘Our first impressions of Christchurch were lovely; it felt a lot like home, actually.’’
On February 22, their last day in New Zealand, they decided to ‘‘kick around’’ Christchurch before returning their hire car that afternoon.
They grabbed a coffee together and dropped off some winter clothes to the Salvation Army.
Then they would both get a tattoo – ‘‘just for kicks’’.
12.51pm, February 22, 2011
Seconds before she died, Rachel Conley was dancing on a Christchurch street.
It has been seven years, but Jackie doesn’t measure her grief that way.
Sometimes it feels like she watched her best friend die, crushed by fallen masonry from an unsafe building, ‘‘centuries ago’’, sometimes it’s as if it happened just yesterday.
A hearing into Rachel’s death, held as part of the Canterbury Earthquakes Royal Commission in
2012, focused on the collapse of two unreinforced masonry buildings at
595 and 595a Colombo St. Apprentice tattooist Matti McEachen and Rachel Conley died when the building housing the Southern Ink tattoo parlour collapsed during the earthquake on February 22, 2011.
‘‘Rachel hated getting tattooed, but I like it,’’ says Jackie. ‘‘Last time we got one, she nearly passed out, and it was hilarious.’’
That tattoo would later help identify Rachel’s body.
‘‘She wasn’t sold on a design for this latest tattoo, but I knew what I wanted. We went into the first tattoo place we saw in town; they were booked solid. By chance, we stumbled upon Southern Ink and decided to pop in there.’’
Jackie knew exactly what she wanted.
‘‘It was the words ‘Let it Be’ in Rachel’s handwriting.
‘‘We spoke with Matti [McEachen], who was going to tattoo me. He gave me a ‘hello’ and said he could tattoo me in an hour or so. We walked out the front door to return to our car, drop it off at the airport, then bus back into town for the appointment.’’
She remembers turning to shut the door, but it was heavy and difficult to shut.
As she turned toward the street, Jackie saw that Rachel was ‘‘dancing’’ down the street about three metres ahead of her.
‘‘I decided to cross the street. She was going to cross as well, but she was behind a parked car.’’
Less than 10 seconds after Jackie shut the door to Southern Ink, at 12.51pm, the 6.3M earthquake hit.
‘‘It was scary and unlike anything I’ve ever encountered,’’ says McMillan.
She let the Earth ‘‘throw’’ her forward into the street.
‘‘I turned to grab onto Rachel’s hand, but she was still stuck behind that damn car and hadn’t really moved, except to turn to face the street. I saw the debris from the building bury her, and I knew she was gone and, well, I knew I was gone, too. I just knew it.’’
She remembers thinking to herself ‘‘this is going to hurt’’ as she stuck her head into the open window of a parked car.
‘‘Debris fell all around me. The dust and smoke-filled air choked me, even as I held my breath. It reminded me of what I saw on 9/11 when the blast from the debris burst out into the streets.’’
When she felt the dust had
settled she took a breath.
‘‘There was no car there; I still don’t know what I had held onto. I yelled for Rachel, half from desperation and half from instinct. I knew she was gone. I felt like I was the only person there. I heard my screams for her echoing in my ear. That’s all I heard.’’
A group of men asked Jackie where Rachel was. She pointed, and they started digging.
‘‘They dug Rachel out far enough to see her hand and check her pulse. I was there. She was gone. They laid her hand down gently and came over, one by one, to sincerely say their condolences.’’
One man stood beside Jackie. ‘‘A policeman took her name and my name, and then I was off with that stranger to find a safe place. I didn’t want to leave her there, but there wasn’t much I could do.’’
The aftermath
In Ohio, Steve Conley first heard about Rachel’s death from Jackie.
But he says it was ‘‘one month’’ before he received official confirmation of her death.
‘‘It took so long because I wasn’t able to fly there,’’ he says. ‘‘The authorities were able to match DNA, I believe from her toothbrush. I could be wrong about that, everything was such a blur. The NZ government was absolutely beautiful to us. I got constant updates from the Christchurch police, a gentleman by the name of Gavin who was incredible. Our government . . . not so much.’’
He says that, after the earthquake, he ‘‘didn’t give a thought’’ to the fact that human error might have played a part in his daughter’s death.
‘‘I managed to watch a lot of the proceedings in the following months concerning building failures – which, by the way, would never have happened in this country – and still didn’t process the fact that the building should not have been occupied,’’ he says.
‘‘My daughter was dead and I couldn’t move beyond that fact.’’
Then, in February, he read my story about Matti McEachen and ‘‘started to get angry’’.
Matti’s father, Bruce McEachen, fought for seven years to bring a complaint against Harcourts real estate agent Chris Chapman, who was aware of safety issues before the collapse, but did nothing to get concerned tenants out of the Southern Ink building.
Chapman, a commercial building manager, faced an allegation of ‘‘disgraceful misconduct’’ for failing to report safety concerns about the Colombo St building to tenants.
A decision by the Real Estate Agents Disciplinary Tribunal, released on March 20, found Chapman’s conduct was substandard but not ‘‘disgraceful’’.
It ruled that Chapman’s conduct did not meet the relevant industry standards ‘‘by a considerable measure’’.
‘‘However, we are not able to conclude that his failure to meet those standards was to such an extent that we could find that it would reasonably be considered
. . . as disgraceful.’’
Bruce McEachen described the decision as ‘‘gutless’’.
‘‘This decision has taken me by surprise,’’ admits Steve Conley.
‘‘Nothing will change the fact that my daughter is gone, but if an individual was responsible for the building being occupied, well, he should bear the responsibility for two young, promising lives taken too early.’’
The thought that Rachel’s death could have been prevented makes Jackie’s ‘‘stomach turn’’.
‘‘During the grief process, I blamed myself, I blamed the universe, I blamed bad luck, nature, but I never thought of blaming a person,’’ she says. ‘‘It felt so much bigger than that. Of course, if anyone knew the building was dangerous and didn’t explicitly warn the occupants, that’s a major issue, they must be held accountable.’’
She’d like to see justice served but also knows that nothing will bring her friend back.
The legacy
In February 2017, the sixth anniversary of the tragedy, Lauren and Deb Conley visited Christchurch for the first time to attend the unveiling of the Canterbury Earthquake Memorial Wall.
Strangers, united in grief by the death of their children, the two families shared their sadness for years through messages and phone calls. At the unveiling of the wall, they finally met for the first time and the Americans stayed with the McEachen family.
‘‘Even though we may be an ocean away we will forever be connected by this sad shared tragedy. We are forever grateful for their friendship, it means the world to us,’’ says Lauren Conley.
To mark the anniversary, she got a tattoo from Southern Ink in Rachel’s memory.
‘‘I got the words ‘Let it Be’ with a feather.’’
Jackie remembers the ‘‘beautiful people’’ in New Zealand.
‘‘The kindness and beauty of the Kiwi people . . . their city had just been destroyed and they genuinely wanted to help me, and they were genuinely sorry my friend had just died. I was given a place to stay and a ride to the police station to ID her.’’
Returning to the United States was hard because ‘‘no-one really understood’’.
Jackie now works at a newspaper in Virginia, in the arts and entertainment department.
Although she has visited New Zealand twice since the earthquake, Jackie has never returned to Christchurch.
‘‘I suffered from PTSD, in addition to also suffering grief . . . I used to crumble at any loud noise or sudden movement and could never walk under any overhangs in the streets. I always have an exit plan. I still have panic attacks but I feel better than I have in years,’’ she says.
‘‘It’s an ongoing struggle, but I’m happy to have this life – I still can’t believe how close I was to being killed as well. I can be a bit dumpy at times, but I also try to make this life count.’’
A few weeks ago, someone dropped a computer in the office. It made a loud ‘bang’’ and glass shattered everywhere.
‘‘I had to go for a walk just to keep myself from panicking. Being in New Zealand – even outside of Christchurch – people are very understanding . . . there’s that look shared by strangers. When I tell people here about it, the response often is, ‘oh that sucks. Anyway...’ and that really hurts. So I usually keep my trap shut about things,’’ says McMillan.
‘‘But with Kiwis, it’s different
. . . it must be very hard to still live in that city that endured such destruction and devastation.’’
Every February 22, Jackie remembers Rachel.
This year she sat in a park, had a ‘‘cheeky glass of Kim Crawford’’, threw a tulip in a stream, listened to David Bowie and ate fish and chips.
She also got a tattoo. About two weeks before Rachel died the pair found themselves in a bathtub in Wellington during their Alice in Wonderland themed leaving drinks. Someone took a photo.
‘‘Rachel even spit fire out of her mouth,’’ recalls McMillan. ‘‘She was the Queen of Hearts. I was the Rabbit. I got a tattoo of that scene of us in the bathtub . . .
‘‘I miss her so much.’’
Final songs, final steps
Before she embarked on that trip to Christchurch, Rachel made a playlist of 202 songs on her iPod.
‘‘Somehow, Jax was able to retrieve the iPod after the earthquake and gave it to me,’’ says Steve Conley.
‘‘That iPod, and specifically that playlist, has helped me get through these last seven years. Truly!’’
He still thinks about the last time they spoke.
‘‘To this day, I think Rachel knew something was going to happen – maybe not what exactly, but I think she knew something catastrophic was going down,’’ he says.
‘‘The playlist she put together had some very personal messages in it.’’
Seven years on, he describes the grieving process as ‘‘beyond description’’.
‘‘When all you have left are memories of your child, you savour every one.’’
After 33 years at Miami Valley Hospital he retired from emergency room life two years ago.
He still plays DJ with Rachel’s iPod and dances while he cooks.
But, a world away, Rachel is forever remembered, dancing her last steps on a Christchurch street.
‘‘When all you have left are memories of your child, you savour every one.’’
Steve Conley and his daughter, Rachel Conley, shared a great love of music.