“Storm Chaser” (drama) 2 minutes

Character: ROGER
Description:  Roger recounts a tale of how he almost lost his life in a Tsunami.
Gender: Male
Age:  21    

Ever since I was a little boy, I was always after adventure.  I loved things that were dangerous.  I constantly found myself doing crazy stunts like doing back flips off of my garage into my pool or dangling from telephone pole wires and hand walking across a street.  I’ve done some crazy things.  I’ve totalled about three cars growing up as a teenager. 

One day my family and I were vacationing in Hawaii.  I was about nineteen at the time.  I was on the beach just chilling out when I happened to look out to the ocean and I saw this enormous wave coming straight for me.  This wasn’t your average wave.  This thing was like a hundred feet high.  I never saw anything like it in my life.  I started to run and so did everybody else.  I could hear the wave crashing and gaining behind. 

I was with my little sister Gina.  I was baby sitting while my family toured around.  I remember picking her up and hoisting her over my shoulders so I could run my hardest.  But then the wave came from under my feet first and caused me to slip and fall.  The wave completely engulfed me and I lost my sister no matter how hard I tried to hold on to her.  We were pulled apart.  I made it to the top of the wave and gasped for air but I was too busy looking for my sister Gina.  I was calling out for her name but there was no response.   Then after about five minutes the water suddenly began to evaporate.  Not evaporate exactly but suck back out to the ocean.  I grabbed onto a tree and held on tight.

The water was gone.  My eyes were searching everywhere for Gina.  I was screaming out her name amongst all the other people who were screaming.  Then I spotted her miraculously.  I ran over to her and she was….my sister drowned….I gave her mouth to mouth and another miracle happened, she started coughing up water.  But then the worst feeling in the world happened.  Another huge wave was headed straight for us!

I picked my sister up off the ground and again threw her over my shoulders.  I ran with everything in my heart to save us from the wave.  There was a staircase that led up a mountain to a hotel.  I ran up those stairs as the wave chased me.  But this time I outran the wave!  I thought I was going to die from either the wave or a heart-attack or something.  I don’t think I would have fought as hard if it wasn’t for my sister.  I was taking those stairs three at a time.   I was more concerned about her life than my own.

And then another wave was coming and this was the biggest one of all.  Had to be about 170 feet high.  But we just kept going up those stairs.  The wave got us but it was the tail end of it and we made it to the top of the mountain.

We lived.  We were reunited with my parents hours later.  I was thanking God my family was alive.  But I will never get over the screams and seeing people getting sucked out into the ocean.  It stays with you forever.

I always wanted to be a storm chaser but now I am dedicating my life to the greatest adventure of all, tsunami’s.  I want to learn everything I can about them so I can create solutions and save lives.  That’s my life’s mission.