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| Rescue workers attempt to deliver a bottle of water to a trapped earthquake survivor (Getty Images: Hagen Hopkins) |
Australian woman pulled alive from quake ruins
An Australian woman has been rescued from the rubble of a four-storey building in Christchurch, a day after the devastating 6.3-magnitude quake tore down buildings in the city.
Ann Voss, from Geelong in Victoria, was working on the third floor of the Pyne Gould Guinness building when the quake struck the New Zealand city.
She telephoned reporters on Tuesday night to say she was trapped beneath her desk under tonnes of concrete, glass and steel in the building.
Rescuers pulled her out on Wednesday, with broken ribs and cuts. She is now recovering in hospital.
On Wednesday, she told of how she did not think she was going to make it out alive.
"I had a concrete block on my shoulder," she told Network Seven, adding that there was also rubble pressing against her ribs.
"I was having trouble breathing."
Earlier on Wednesday, her son Rob left Melbourne for Christchurch not knowing if he would see her again.
The two spoke just after the quake hit, when Ms Voss called to tell him she loved him.
"I don't think I'm going to make it," she told him.
During her ordeal, Ms Voss took regular calls from her son in Australia and spoke with other family members.
She says the calls were a great morale booster.
When told there were dozens of rescuers working to access the collapsed building as she lay in the dark, she said: "I'm hoping they are going to get me out soon because I have been here for so long and it's dark and horrible".
"I know I'm bleeding and I can feel the ground is quite wet... my hand, I don't know if I've cut it," she said.
"At first it was squashed and it was swelling. I don't know what I've done. I can't see it."
Ms Voss said she had plenty of time trapped under four storeys of rubble to reassess her priorities in life.
"Like not worrying about stupid things like: `Oh my God, where's my bag?'," she said.
"What does that matter? They are things you can replace later. You can't replace people."
Ms Voss says she believes her desk saved her.
Her son was happy that it had.
"She's a very good mum," he said. - ABC/AAP
