Surviving 7.8: Caught on the coast

Tuesday, 13 November 2018

Two years ago, on November 14, a 7.8-magnitude earthquake hit Kaikōura.

While most people were fast asleep, Celeste Sharplin was driving up the coast from Kaikōura to Blenheim.

Sharplin still suffers from nerve damage to her neck after her car hit a bridge that had risen about 30 centimetres as the earth moved.

'Coming up to the two-year anniversary is surreal,' Sharplin said.

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'I think two years later, it still feels like it only happened last week.

'I think everybody that was directly affected is still dealing with it, it doesn't matter if it's two years or 10 years.'

These days, Sharplin always keeps her keys and phone in her back pocket, to be ready at a moment's notice if a quake hits.

Sometimes when big trucks rumble past the Blenheim cafe where she works, her heart beats so fast she can't breathe. 

Whenever there's an earthquake, even a small one, it feels like a 7.8 and she always calls her mum to check she's OK.  

'It feels like it's happening all over again. It's a reminder that nothing in life is really predictable.'

Sharplin was 19-years-old at the time and had just finished up her shift at Night n' Day in Kaikōura. 

Every week when she finished her Sunday night shift at 11pm, she would drive up to Blenheim to see her partner. 

She stopped home for a quick shower. Her mum was lying on the couch, 'drive safe, don't crash', she said. 

'Don't worry, I never do,' Sharplin replied.

As she was driving out of town, Sharplin was thinking to herself, 'it's really peculiar that I've driven this road every single week for years, and I've never had a crash'.

Nearing Kēkerengū, she was driving down a 'straight', and her steering wheel starting moving from side to side, she said.

'I felt my wheels start shaking, and I thought, 'this wind is incredibly strong'.'

It kept getting stronger, but she hadn't realised it was an earthquake until her car was taken to the other side of the road, she said. 

When the shaking ceased, she stopped her car in the middle of the road. 

'I'm hyperventilating, my heart is pounding, I feel like I'm going to pass out,' she recalled. 

It was dark outside, she didn't know the extent of the damage to the roads and was eager to get to reception, so she got back on the road.

Doing about 100kmh, 'hooning' to get to Blenheim, she realised she was approaching a bridge. 

'The moon was really bright at that stage. It was a really clear night.

'I'm driving through the straight, looking forward and I see on the road, there's a really weird shaped shadow.' 

The bridge had dislodged from the road and risen about 30cm from the ground. 

'The wheels didn't have time to go over, so it pretty much just went through the tyres. 

'It popped all four of my tyres, buckled all of my rims and completely destroyed everything at the bottom of my car.'

 As she came over the bridge her car was 'done'. She managed to get her car over the bridge and to a pull over spot. 

'I'm sitting there, my neck hurts, my everything hurts. I couldn't move, I was so terrified.' 

She had no service, she went from feeling nothing, to feeling everything, Sharplin said. 

'My heart starts pounding really fast, I start hyperventilating, I'm trying to call and I can't.' 

She got out of her car and went and sat on the train tracks which overlooked the beach. 

'I'm just sitting there, bawling my eyes. I couldn't breath properly because my heart was beating so fast. 

'I'm screaming, I'm crying.' 

Rattled by the quake and gripped with panic, Sharplin was screaming for help as waves of aftershock rippled through the ground. 

She sat on the train tracks for about 15 minutes before she saw the lights of another vehicle cutting through the darkness. 

A caravan pulled up beside her and she hopped in and they carried on towards Seddon. 

The driver tried to calm her down with questions of where she was going, telling her that it would be OK. 

'I was in the most tragic state you can imagine. I couldn't breath, I couldn't speak, I couldn't even see,' Sharplin said. 

They had passed Kēkerengū when they approached a man standing on the road, wearing a high visibility vest, waving his arms. 

'You can't go any further. There's too much damage,' he said. 

The man was a relief train driver, who had finished his shift 10 minutes before the quake, swapping over with his best friend who ended up getting caught in a tunnel for three days, Sharplin said. 

Sharplin jumped in the car with the train driver and tuned into the radio when they heard 'tsunami warning, tsunami warning'. 

'I'm sitting there already in absolute hysterics … and the beach is right there, and you can hear the waves crashing.'

A number of cars had gathered and they were all panicking. They decided that driving inland was their best option. 

They made their way back down south to Kēkerengū, collecting more cars on the way, but the aftershocks had caused more damage to the road.

A woman invited about 15 people into her house. She pulled out a bunch of couches, blankets and a barbecue. 

'I'm sitting there, I wrap the blanket over me. None of us really slept, because the ground was constantly shaking,' Sharplin said.  

When they were cooking up the sausages, smoke was spotted by helicopters flying overhead, who made their way to the group, she said. 

A bunch of Fire and Emergency workers arrived and checked everyone was safe. 

Sharplin hopped in for a long rocky ride back to Blenheim, breaking down when she finally reached her partner at home.

A few days later, after walking into walls, suffering from a constant nose bleed and headaches, Sharplin visited the doctor. 

The accident had caused a concussion and nerve damage down the back of her neck.

A few weeks later, Sharplin, like many Kaikōura locals, got '7.8' inked to her forearm.

'I think 90 per cent of Kaikōura has one of these tattoos somewhere on their body,' she said.

'It's a good connection, you see someone with it and you're like 'you're not alone'.

'They also went through it. Hundreds of us went through it, thousands of us went through it.'