LEGAZPI CITY, Philippines – Nine months’ pregnant Rose Ann Alberto thought the end was at hand when an eight-meter-high storm surge destroyed her house in Barangay 37 in Tacloban City at the height of Typhoon Yolanda last Nov. 8.
The family of the 19-year-old was able to evacuate to a second floor of a neighbor’s house, but the strong winds and torrential rains forced the water to rise up quickly to the second floor, trapping all of them on the ceiling.
Her father urged them to pray because if the water continued to rise, they would all drown.
But the strong winds lashed the house for hours starting at 5 a.m., and tore off the roof, forcing Rose Ann and her parents, siblings and their brown dog “Lea” to cling on to the roof as it floated on water. There was zero visibility.
“I clung on to a broken wooden beam for two hours until our dog, Lea, appeared from nowhere,” Rose Ann said in the Waray dialect.
“As the current carried me toward the sea, Lea swam around me as if looking for something to help me with. She finally managed to get my collar into her mouth and pulled me back toward the shore where I found a large broken wood beam until papa (father) saw me,” she said.
Her father Ronnie brought her to where her mother Riza and brother Rensy were clinging to debris floating on the water.
As the onslaught of Yolanda subsided at about 9:30 a.m., Ronnie was still looking for his three missing children who luckily were able to seek shelter at another house.
After the typhoon, the Alberto family along with other survivors stayed at the city port where Ronnie works as a helper.
Although his family was already safe, Ronnie was worried about their dog Lea, which had been with them for the past three years. He could not accept the possibility that their dog was gone.
Ronnie could not help but cry after seeing cadavers floating on the water and his heavily destroyed neighborhood in the aftermath of the storm.
Luckily, amid the ruins of their town, another survivor told the Alberto family that the dog Lea was seen inside the chapel of San Roque, patron saint of the community.
As Ronnie arrived at the chapel, he started to call out Lea. To his great joy, the hero dog slowly crawled out of the chapel, making crying sounds until she found him.
Ronnie carried the dog through the road strewn with debris until they reached his family’s temporary shelter at the city fish port.
Six days later, Ronnie again had to walk through the road from the port to Rizal Street where decomposing cadavers lay, just to reach the command post of a rescue team because Rose Ann complained of birth pains.
Paramedics brought Rose Ann to the East Visayas Regional Medical Center. The following day she gave birth to a baby girl.
Rose Ann said she likes the baby’s name “Yolanda.”
“I thanked God for helping us survive this typhoon but above all for giving back Lea to us,” Rose Ann added.
“It was a miracle we survived,” Ronnie said.
~Via PhilStar
Tags: dog hero, dog saves girl, dog saves pregnant owner, Philippines dog, typhoon survivor
