By Mark Ellis
Her house slid the length of two football fields in the devastating Washington mudslide of March 22nd and became a twisted mass of wreckage. Miraculously, Amanda Skorjanc and her five-month-old survived, protected in a small pocket formed amidst the debris.
Amanda was home with her 5-month-old son that Saturday morning watching videos. Suddenly, the lights in her small home began to flicker and shake, then a wall of mud and debris began to race toward her and her infant son at incredible speed.
“I looked out our front door and it was like a movie,” Amanda told CBN from her room at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. “Houses were exploding and the next thing I remember, the next thing I see is the neighbor’s chimney coming into our front door.”
The terrifying mudslide completely overwhelmed the small community of Oso. At least 36 lives were lost.
Amanda did the only thing she knew to do in such a time. She cried out to the Lord in her distress, “Please save us,” she held her son tightly, and waited for the earth to stop moving.
“I held onto that baby like it was the only purpose that I had,” she said.
Her home slid about 600 feet before it came to a stop. Amanda and her son were trapped but a pocket miraculously formed around them. She found herself cushioned between her mangled couch, the La-Z-Boy recliner, and part of the roof.
Before mom and son were rescued, she distracted herself from her agony by praying and comforting her infant son.
Finally, they heard sirens, “the most amazing sound I ever heard.” Amanda kept her eyes closed during the rescue. “I was scared and in so much pain.” Rescuers immediately took her son from her arms and used a chainsaw to free her from the debris.
She suffered multiple fractures, broken ankles, and injuries to her eye socket. Her son sustained a fractured skull. Both are recovering, but doctors say she will need to convalesce for 10 weeks.
Amanda’s partner, Ty Suddarth, was running errands when the mudslide struck, and was uninjured.
“Oso is home,” Amanda told CBN. “But I’ll never go back.”
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