Sue's Story

 As ChristChurch Cathedral crumbled around Sue Spigel, breaking her arm and burying her up to her neck, her mind turned to her grandson. "My first thought was `I'm going to die in here'. But then I thought, `I'm not ready to go' and I thought of my grandson and how much I want to see him grow up," the cathedral's artist-in-residence told The Press. "I'm just so grateful I can still breathe and that's really the most important thing in this world. My survival was a miracle." The image of a bloodied, dust-caked Sue hanging out of a cathedral window went global. The artist had been sewing a cloak for the Dean of Auckland in her cathedral studio shortly before 12.51pm on February 22. She decided to go for a cup of tea, but was distracted by a piece on the radio and sat down in her window seat to listen. Moments later, the quake struck and the cathedral began falling apart. Sue tried to get under a table. "Within about four seconds, a huge piece of masonry fell on both tables, crushing them. If I had been under there or at my sewing machine, I would have been dead," she said. As the room collapsed around her, the window she was clinging to became her lifeline. "When it was over I was up to my neck in rubble, but I was able to push myself up onto the windowsill with one arm as my other arm was broken. "Then everything went black when the rest of the tower fell and with all the dust and dirt, it was like a tornado." When it cleared, she cried out to people in the square. Eventually a policeman pushed his way through. He, along with a crowd of other people, helped Sue down a ladder. Medical workers then checked her over before ferrying her into a police-escorted station wagon destined for hospital. She was discharged from hospital about 1am on Wednesday with only a broken arm and bruising. "When everything calms down a bit, I would love to be able to find them [her rescuers] and tell them what they mean to me," she said. Now at home in Governors Bay with her husband Bob and her 19-month-old grandson Jacob next door, Sue thinks of those in the cathedral who were not as fortunate. "Those people, they were just coming to enjoy that beautiful building and I just feel so very horrible about that."