‘ I did not let that baby go’

Survivor recalls the moments before the mudslide

SEATTLE — The lights in Amanda Skorjanc’s home started to flicker and shake. When she looked outside, she saw a cascade of mud and debris crashing down the hillside and nearby houses “exploding” from its force.

Moments earlier she was watching videos with her infant son, and then she saw a neighbour’s chimney barrelling toward her door. Skorjanc gripped her son tightly and turned away.

“I held onto that baby like it was the only purpose that I had,” she said. “I did not let that baby go for one second.”

When it was over, the powerful mudslide had destroyed Skorjanc’s entire rural Washington community, killing at least 36 people and destroying dozens of homes.

Skorjanc and her baby were among the few pulled from the rubble alive. On Wednesday, the 25- year- old mother gave her first interview about the March 22 ordeal from Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, where she remains hospitalized.

Skorjanc is starting to recover physically from several broken bones and six surgeries, but she and her doctor acknowledged the emotional healing will take a very long time. Certain sounds bring Skorjanc right back to that frightening Saturday morning.

“If the wind blows too hard. If someone is pushing a bed past me, and it rumbles the floor a bit. It brings back the same sight over and over again,” Skorjanc said.

When the earth stopped moving after the mudslide, Skorjanc was trapped in a pocket formed by her damaged couch and pieces of her roof. She had two broken legs and a broken arm.

Skorjanc said she called out to God to save her and her baby and prayed rescuers would arrive quickly and find them. “I started to hear sirens — the most amazing sound I ever heard,” she said.

One of her ankles was crushed and might not recover fully. She also suffered injuries to her face, including an eye socket. Her doctor said she will need to be off her feet for another 10 weeks, then likely will struggle to start walking again.

Her son, Duke Suddarth, is being treated at Seattle Children’s Hospital. She said his injuries included a skull fracture.

“He’s my motivation.”