Doctors: Haitian may have survived 4 weeks in rubble

[Electric Monk]

Source: CNN International

Port-au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) -- A man pulled alive from the rubble of a building in Haiti's capital Monday may have been trapped since the January 12 quake that leveled much of the city, doctors reported.

The 28-year-old man, identified as Evan Muncie, was found in the wreckage of a market where he sold rice, his family told staff at a University of Miami field hospital. He suffered from extreme dehydration and malnutrition, but did not appear to have significant crushing injuries, the doctors said.

"He was emaciated. He hadn't had anything in quite some time. He had open wounds that were festering on both of his feet," said Dr. Mike Connelly, of the university's Project Medishare. The people who brought him to the hospital said they found the man while digging out the marketplace, Connelly said.

The man told doctors that someone was bringing him water while he was trapped, but doctors told CNN that he sounded confused and at times appeared to believe he was still under the rubble. Connelly said the man must have had some water during the past month to have survived, but Connelly wasn't sure how he would have had access to it.

Read more: http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/02/08/haiti.rescue/

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Wow

[MinneapolisMatt]

1. Wow is right.

The will to live can be extraordinary.

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. It sure is!

[NutmegYankee]

10. I hate the term "will to live".

It's nothing against you or the survivor, it's just that many other people have had the will to live but that cold hard reality killed them anyway. It doesn't matter how hard a person wants to live - a lack of oxygen underwater or lack of water in a desert is going to kill you. It only bothers me because it makes the dead sound like they were weak, or did not have as strong a will. I agree that there is a will to keep going, such as finding shelter, or civilization if you're lost, but survival itself is all about circumstance and "luck".

Maybe I'm just bitter after watching someone fight as hard as they could to survive cancer, and lose anyway.

[Edweird]

3. "May"? Is there some doubt as to whether or not he is alive?

Are these, in fact, real doctors?
I don't have a medical degree, but I'm pretty sure I could call it.....

[truthisfreedom]

5. They're saying "may" because it seems impossible he could have had a source of water.

Apparently they believe he may have become trapped under the rubble sometime after the earthquake. Perhaps he returned to his store and became trapped when rubble shifted and closed his entrance?

[varelse]

4. Trapped for a month and lived?

Amazing. And horrifying. How many more lived for weeks and were not found?

[brooklynite]

6. This is, of course, a "miracle"...

The fact that 200,000 other people didn't survive doesn't matter.

[dipsydoodle]

11. The rest

become a statistic - that always happens unfortunately.

[winyanstaz]

7. I knew they had stopped looking way too soon.

The human spirit is amazing...we should have kept looking for people all this time...more may have been saved.

[EFerrari]

8. Our rescue teams went in on a Thursday and on Saturday the UN

called off the searches.

[winyanstaz]

9. I just read an article that over a million people have not recieved

any kind of help as of yet in Haiti.
The news has moved on...and the people are forgotten as the sharks begin to move in.