Sausalito, California — A woman from the San Francisco Bay Area was buried alive on Thursday when a mudslide sent her home tumbling 200 feet down a hill. About 60 of her neighbors are still out of their homes.
“I can’t believe how this is to be out here today — that I’m actually walking, nothing broken, I’m alive,” said Susan Gordon.
The instant Susan Gordon’s home in Sausalito, California, was crushed in the middle of the night by a mudslide, leaving her buried alive.
“And I started screaming and… within ten minutes, within ten minutes there was a neighbor with a flashlight who had heard screaming and found me and he called 911,” she said.
The man with the flashlight was inspecting the house, and two rescuers went to her aid. Others ordered neighbors on the hillside to evacuate. The firefighters arrived and they pulled her out.
“They told me they had to be very careful because there were gas lines and there were electrical wiring down,” Gordon said. “And they also said that that there was nothing underneath me and they had to be careful about the earth moving again and crushing me more. And they said keep wiggling your toes because I couldn’t feel my legs because I was up to my breast.”
She said that she didn’t realize she would be all right until “they checked my blood pressure and they checked my body to make sure there wasn’t anything broken.”
Gordon’s only injuries are cuts on her face. She was released from the hospital within hours.
“Everyone says it’s a miracle,” she said.
“I couldn’t sleep last night because I kept take rubble of the house thinking about the things in each room I will never see again,” Gordon said.
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