GUY RAZ, host:
Rick Santos was in Port-au-Prince Tuesday night when the earthquake struck. He was in Haiti to meet with officials from the Health Ministry. Santos heads up IMA World Health. It's a nonprofit that works in the developing world to provide free health care services.
On Tuesday, after an all-day meeting at the Montana Hotel in Port-au-Prince, Santos and his colleagues decided to go for dinner. And just as they started to make their way through the lobby of that hotel, the shaking began.
Mr. RICK SANTOS (President and CEO, IMA World Health): And I looked up at the chandelier and it moved, and literally the next thing I know everything came down, just completely crashing on us.
RAZ: It happened that fast?
Mr. SANTOS: It happened that fast. I would say three seconds, maybe five at the most.
RAZ: And what was the next thing you remembered?
Mr. SANTOS: I just remember just kind of being thrown on the ground and just hard to breathe. There was just dust everywhere. Then I immediately just started looking for my colleagues to see where they were. And we were all in a small area, you know, approximately 8-foot-by-5-foot. If we had been anyplace else, we would've been crushed.
RAZ: So you were surrounded by beams on all sides of you. And presumably, it was dark. You couldn't see well.
Mr. SANTOS: Pitch black. I mean, you couldn't put your hand in front of your face. And I think after we made sure that everyone was alive, we realized two of our colleagues were injured. They were being pinned down by some debris on their legs. And we had cell phones. We had iPhones and BlackBerries, and we click them on and you could then see. I mean, it was pretty much enough light to eliminate nearly the whole space.
RAZ: And you had no food or no water.
Mr. SANTOS: No food, no water.
RAZ: But I read that you actually carried lollipops with you. You had a lollipop.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. SANTOS: Yeah. You know, I have two young sons, four and a half and 3. And so, in my computer bag, I always would carry a couple - well, this time it was only one. But, you know, if my son needs motivation to, you know, to do something else or, you know, you - the lollipop is always a good incentive. So I had one in my bag, and really, that was it.
RAZ: And you passed it around and...
Mr. SANTOS: Passed it around.
RAZ: ...shared it with the colleagues that you could reach.
Mr. SANTOS: That's right.
RAZ: You were - of course, you were stuck for about 50 hours. When did you first see signs that a rescue effort was underway?
Mr. SANTOS: Actually, the very first morning we heard somebody with a sledgehammer kind of systematically pounding on the roof looking for pockets and we just - we were starting to scream and to shout. It was probably around -let's see, it was light - maybe at six or seven. It was probably around 9 o'clock that this happened. And I think we were just elated, just completed elated that somebody had already found us. And they were French speaking.
We think they were Haitian. And they basically - they just said, okay, we hear you. How many are you? And are you hurt? So we yelled to the person, there's eight of us and we're hurt. And then nothing for the rest of the day. And I think that night, we were pretty down.
I mean, we were just like, why didn't they come back or why didn't they just at least come back to tell us we've heard you, we're coming or anything? It just -they just left and we heard nothing else.
RAZ: So you were there for two nights. And then, finally, sort of it seemed as if all hope was lost, you actually heard rescue workers again.
Mr. SANTOS: Yes.
RAZ: And what happened?
Mr. SANTOS: Complete jubilation. I mean, just - I think all of us just then at that moment knew we are going to be saved. And we all - I think everyone of us cried. And, you know, people say, you know, that was a really long hour or long four hours. Those were the shortest four hours of my life.
RAZ: The four hours it took for them to remove the rubble to...
Mr. SANTOS: Yes.
RAZ: ...pull you out.
RAZ: Yeah. And actually, it wasn't as simple even to pull us out. I mean, it wasn't - you know, originally, when I thought that what they would to do is try to cut up as much, and we would kind of walk out, in a sense. But really, I was actually dragged by my feet through about two feet of the barrier that had been encapsulating me. And so, they pulled me out once and then I went through another barrier. And we were only, you know, I would say, you know, maybe five yards at the most from the outside. And...
RAZ: Mm-hmm.
Mr. SANTOS: ...then they carried me in a stretcher kind of up through some more rubble and down through some more rubble. It was just - I was just shocked by how much just concrete was just encapsulating an area that was basically had been previously been open.
RAZ: And can you describe what you saw once you were pulled out of the rubble?
Mr. SANTOS: The level of devastation was incredible. When I was rescued and we were driving down to the embassy, there's groups of people lying in the road sleeping, either afraid to go back into their dwelling because of the aftershocks or because their dwellings were no longer usable. You could see that as we drove down the streets. It was just - there's just so much need there.
It's - and Haiti needs - I mean, they need that. This emergency phase, they really need people to come in and do as much as they can, but also prepare for the next phase. I mean, Haiti has to go through a - the next phase is basically reconstruction and then recovery.
And my hope and my concern is that, you know, there's so much attention to Haiti right, but really, this process that they're beginning again will take years. And that we need to be committed, that the international community needs to be committed for the long-term to really helping Haiti.
RAZ: That's Rick Santos. He is the president IMA World Health and a survivor of Haiti's earthquake. He's now safe at home, back with his family.
Rick Santos, we're so glad you're safe. Thank you.
Mr. SANTOS: Guy, thank you very much.