After two days filled with uncertainty in earthquake-shattered Haiti, one UF student has returned home and another is on his way.
Jon Bougher, a UF graduate student, arrived in Miami Thursday evening.
Roman Safiullin, also a UF graduate student, was in the Dominican Republic awaiting a flight to Miami as of Thursday evening.
Bougher and Safiullin, who were in Haiti filming a documentary about a nonprofit organization, were in the village of Little Africa, about 30 minutes south of the earthquake site, when they felt the ground rumble.
The earthquake lasted about 30 seconds, Bougher said.
“At the end, you kind of heard buildings crumbling and people screaming,” Bougher said.
With 40 minutes of battery life remaining, Bougher and Safiullin grabbed their video equipment.
They searched the community, looking for collapsed builidings and signs of local rescue efforts.
“The thing I remember the most is the deeply, deeply religious people throwing their arms in the sky, praising Jesus and screaming in tongues,” Bougher said. “It was like they were possessed.”
Before the earthquake, Bougher had never seen a dead body outside of a funeral.
He saw a pastor who had been killed by the falling rubble of his own home.
His face looked like a rubber mask, he said.
Bougher and Safiullin interviewed a woman who had stepped out of her tiny shop minutes before the earthquake.
“She was just saying, ‘Jesus save me, Jesus save me, Jesus save me,’” Bougher said.
But surrounding the faith was chaos.
Bougher and Safiullin headed to the American embassy. After receiving little help there, they headed to the airport in Port-au-Prince, where they were separated.
"As soon as you got close to the [airplane] door you started to get crushed," Bougher said. “To be honest, I never knew, except for the UF championship last year, what it was like to be trampled, and in that situation it was just running through my mind."
Though Bougher was grateful for his safety, he expressed concerns for Haitian victims.
“I think when people start getting hungry, there’s going to be a lot of madness in that country,” Bougher said. “I’m glad I got out when I did.”
Relief flowed through the community when word broke of the students' safety Thursday morning.
UF President Bernie Machen spread the news of the students’ safety in a statement to the UF News Bureau.
“It’s a bright spot in the midst of a horrible tragedy," he said. "While we’re thankful that Jon and Roman are safe, we continue to keep the earthquake victims and their loved ones in our thoughts.”
In a separate statement, Machen also confirmed the safety of two UF faculty members in Haiti, Florence Segile and Ed Handlon.
Churchill Roberts, co-director of the Documentary Institute at the College of Journalism and Communications and the students’ adviser, said he was relieved to hear the students were safe. He sent them an e-mail Tuesday, and, when he did not hear from them, he and the students' peers began to worry.
"There was nothing I could tell the parents,” Roberts said. “That really bothered me."
"Now that I know they’re all right, I’m anxious to see what their footage is like," he said.
Both students' families expressed relief.
Barbara Safiullin, Roman’s stepmother, who lives in Fort Lauderdale, was overjoyed to hear he was safe.
“We’re just so excited,” she said, adding he left her a voicemail informing her he was safe. “We’ve been glued to the TV for the past few days. It now feels like a huge wave of relief.”
Sara Bougher, Jon’s mother, described the depressing days waiting for news. She, her husband and her daughter all stayed home from work, anxious for any news coming out of Haiti.
“He’s alive, and that’s all that matters,” she said. "We're so happy."
When she spoke to her son briefly Thursday afternoon she didin't press for details about the earthquake.
“I wouldn’t have asked him anyway,” she said.
After talking to his mother, Jon Bougher burst into tears, overwhelmed by his memories.
"In terms of hearing her voice, it was emotional for me," he said. "I think it was the collective experience of seeing dead bodies in Haiti and the emotional experience of being in the airport."
Carolyn Tillo and Jared Misner contributed to this article.
