Concord Man Survives Nepal Earthquake
CONCORD (CBS) - A Concord man survived the Nepal earthquake that killed several thousand people on April 25.
Two weeks after the earthquake, Peter Waters is back home.
He says he is thankful to be alive after what he witnessed in Nepal. The 7.8-magnitude earthquake claimed the lives of more than 7,000 people and injured thousands more.
"I'm lucky," he said. "A lot of people didn't fare as well. I knew somebody on (Mount) Everest that didn't make it."
Waters was in a remote valley in Nepal, as part of a service trek when the quake hit.
"We felt the earth shaking," he said. "We were watching boulders fall."
Although he wasn't in the hardest hit area with mass casualties, Waters says the images of seeing remote villages destroyed will stay with him forever.
"We were seeing these villages made out of stone crumble and collapse," he recalled.
He spent eight days in a guest's house where there was food and water. Eventually, he was able to find a working cell phone to contact his family.
"He called us at 2:30 in the morning...so it saved us a lot of heartache," said Karen Cadenhead, Peter's mother.
Peter is so thankful to be home with his family, but he still can't help thinking about the devastation still taking place in Nepal and the many people that still need help. He is urging everyone to give back.
"There's not enough doctors. There aren't enough structural engineers to help rebuild," he says. "So, what's really needed is access to these really essential things and getting them to remote villages."
Waters says life is precious, and his heart goes out to those that lost everything, adding that it was an honor to serve the people in Nepal.
"We all have a limited number of breaths and if you knew the number of breaths you had, what would you do differently?" he said. "For me, it's giving my life to others."
WBZ NewsRadio 1030's Kim Tunnicliffe reports:
