5 year old tornado survivor: "I feel sorry for my parents, they wasted their lives saving me."

[Contrary1]

:cry:

"PHIL CAMPBELL, Ala (Reuters) – Five-year-old Garrett LeClere survived the devastating twister that struck Phil Campbell, Alabama on April 27 with two broken arms and a fractured skull.

His parents did not make it. Rescuers searched for a day before finding the bodies of Jay and Amy LeClere beneath the rubble of their home.

<snip>

There was room enough in the family bathtub for only Garrett and his sister to weather the storm in Phil Campbell. The boy remembers the tub spinning and being lifted before he landed hard 200 yards from his leveled home.

"I heard myself scream really loud. The hurt was really painful," he said.

His screams saved his life. A volunteer fire chief found Garrett covered in blood and mud and carried him in the back of a pickup to a hospital, where he remained for eight days..."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110528/us_nm/us_weather_tornadoes_orphans

[pnwmom]

1. What a heartbreaking story. nt

[Angry Dragon]

2. Some one needs to tell that little boy his parents did not waste

their lives saving him and his sister. That is what good parents do...... they try to protect their children

[grasswire]

4. someone please get that dear child some counseling

He mustn't go through life thinking their death was his fault.

[reggie the dog]

28. he needs to know the difference between waste and sacrafice

his parents sacraficed, their lives were not wasted, their boy is still with us

[calimary]

31. What a sad story.

Such sadness for such a little kid. Five years old.

Damn.

[Fumesucker]

3. That's heartbreaking..

I hope one day he'll have children of his own and know how his parents felt..

[Odin2005]

5. Poor kid!

:cry:

[Darth_Kitten]

6. What a tragedy.

:(

[alphafemale]

7. A five year old doesn't have a full grasp of language.

I'd like to beat silly the news crew that decided to grief vampire a five year old orphan though.

You're five. Your parents were impaled by flying pieces of metal to save your life... How does that feel?

[Viking 1]

15. My thought exactly

The boy probably meant, "They lost their lives trying to save me." But he still needs to be watched in case he does feel survivor's guilt.

[proud2BlibKansan]

8. For the life of me I will never understand why people don't have basements in tornado country

It should be a law.

[Ex Lurker]

11. in some places the water table is too high nt.

[proud2BlibKansan]

13. Then put in a storm shelter

[alphafemale]

17. In many cases nowadays, homes are built to order.

You pick the lot. Then the floor plan and specify everything from the type of bath tub to the color of carpet and the shutters.

It makes sense to list that as an option. But it's not something that should be thrown in as a "Freebie." Maybe you think contractors make that kind of profit that they can lose thousands of dollars per house by putting something in that people don't actually pay for?

Or let's make it a law. Every new house HAS to have one. Every current house has to have one within 3 years.

Apartment complexes will be mandated to have one safe shelter for every 4 units.

Yes. Even in Maine.

You know. To keep us safe.

[truedelphi]

29. In California, one reason houses can cost so much more than anywhere else

Is the tremendous mandates put on the home builder.

Stability of the hillside - requiring geologists to do reports.

Earthquake foundation supports - some of that costs 100K. Before anything else is even built.

Basements are relatively inexpensive. At lest compared to what gets mandated here.

[alphafemale]

34. Basements would be impossible someplaces/because of soil/water tables.

They're not completely safe in any case, anyway. Debris falls in them/for example.

[truedelphi]

37. Oh I understand. I do hear you.

Some columnist in the San Francisco area wrote a column on how if the six billion bucks needed to pay for the earthquake upgrades on the Bay Bridge was spent on hospital care for all in the Bay area instead, so many tens of thousands of lives would be saved.

Whereas by upping the safety of the Bay bridge - it is all a gamble. Should the SF Bay area get hit with an 8.9 or 9.0, like happened in Fukashima, the Bridge would be toast anyway.

[Occulus]

30. "But it's not something that should be thrown in as a "Freebie."

Of course not. It might save some lives, and we can't have that for people who can't afford it, now, CAN we?

[alphafemale]

35. lol.

So you'd propose that a contractor has to shell about $5,000 out of his pocket on every home he builds.

You'd propose that every landlord has to come up with this money and plant these things.

Just...where EXACTLY do you imagine this imaginary money comes from?

Because I'd like to live in this land of Imaginary Money...if only for a day.

[laundry_queen]

33. I totally agree

and there should be subsidies for those who chose to put a shelter into an existing home, because it's not very fair that only rich people have storm shelters and basements.

[alphafemale]

36. Subsidies from what? That huge Clinton era surplus?

As they get more popular/necessary in this seeming new era of the Super Storms, more people will make them and the price will come down.

Some of the buried ones look like little more than a septic tank with a door.

[malaise]

19. The small government politicians don't want that

do they?

[kath]

14. But in most situations the frickin' builders find it way more profitable to build the house on a

slab rather than going to the expense and trouble of digging a basement. All kinds of excuses about clay soil and other bullshit - but if we can put people on the moon we can figure out how to build a dry basement in clay soil.
Like most things, it's usually about profit.

I hate, hate, HATE living without a basement, for several reasons.

[karynnj]

23. I would guess that the builders may be faced with the fact that people

do not consider a basement to be worth the cost of building one.

Consider that there are other developments and builders. It may be that in areas where, for any reason, it is very expensive to include a basement, they know that they can not sell the house with a basement for the cost of the house without one plus the cost of adding the basement.

I live in NJ in an area of rocks and clay soil - and we have a basement that is about half the footprint of the house and a crawlspace that is the other half. The crawl space is over rock. In this area, I have not seen a house without a basement - likely meaning the economics of the area are such that the builders see NOT having basements as something that will makes houses harder to sell.

If it is economic, mandating that all new construction have basement would work as all developers would add them. You would also think that after a major tornado, a builder who added basements and highlighted that they would be safer in case of a tornado would likely be successful.

[1monster]

20. No one has basements in Florida, where tornados are not uncommon (although

killer tornados such as those in Joplin are not common). The water table is too high.

My husband was once digging a fence post hole and hit water a foot and a half down.

[RainDog]

9. he has survivor guilt

and he misses his mom and dad.

poor baby.

[catabryna]

10. Un-rec...

For anyone who thinks it is appropriate to print a 5 year old kid's words after such suffering. It is not.

[alphafemale]

18. News reporters can be such grief vampires.

Get the widow on the set.

[Liberal_in_LA]

12. so sad

[BlueIris]

16. Oh, oh damn...

That poor kid. I hope he realizes one day that his parents did the best thing parents can do in that situation and they wouldn't have wanted it any differently.

[XanaDUer]

21. Five years old and having to deal with all of that

I don't think I could at middle-age. And, he it too young to know this, but I am sure his parents would be glad to know he is alive.

This is such a sad story.

[felix_numinous]

22. A 5 year old

using the phrase 'wasted their lives' is pretty amazing as well as sad.

[ZombieHorde]

24. Damn. nt

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

25. At 5, most kids don't always choose their words properly. I believe this

is one of those cases. I had to go into the link to see if his sister was ok..thank goodness she survived as well. It's wonderful that his sister's father has given him a home.

[qanda]

26. I agree with you

I don't think he meant it the way it came out. It's more like he was trying to say that they lost their lives to save me. Well, at least I will comfort myself in hoping that's what he meant.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

27. Same here.

[Historic NY]

32. Kids know........I remember when my mother died & I was just 5,