1988 QUAKE VICTIM, ANGEL ARE REUNITED
By Owen Moritz – Daily News Staff Writer
New York Daily News, NY
May 10 2007
Arman Ghazaryan hugs Arthur Halvajian, who cared for him when he was
8-year-old quake victim.
Arman Ghazaryan doesn’t speak English. In fact, the intensely shy
young man barely speaks at all.
But when he was reunited this week with the New Jersey family that
sheltered him during one of the most frightening times in his life,
he managed to show everyone how grateful he was.
"He gave us a hug," said Arthur Halvajian of Fair Lawn.
In 1988, Ghazaryan was a boy living in Spitak, Armenia, when a
devastating earthquake hit the city, killing at least 25,000.
Ghazaryan, then 8, suffered a crushed skull and avoided amputation
of a mangled left leg only because the humanitarian organization
AmeriCares flew him to New York for medical treatment.
Now 27, soft-spoken and intense, Ghazaryan yesterday recounted the
disaster that leveled building after building in Spitak and took his
mother’s life.
"I don’t remember much – but I do remember people screaming. … It
happened so fast," he said after an emotional meeting in Fair Lawn
with Halvajian and his wife, Araxy, who cared for him during his two
months of reconstructive surgery.
As the city of Spitak shook and trembled, Ghazaryan’s four-story
school came tumbling down in seconds, burying 300 classmates. Sitting
in a classroom at the far end of the school, he was trapped under
the rubble.
Even now he’s not sure how he was among the 25 pupils who survived, but
Ghazaryan vaguely remembers townspeople pulling him from the rubble.
He would find out later that his mischievous sister had bolted from
a classroom moments before the earthquake struck, her teacher in
pursuit. Both his sister and the teacher survived.
And when he finally went home, Ghazaryan walked off the plane and
into the arms of his father and grandfather, who he thought had died
in the quake.
Ghazaryan made the trek back to America this week to thank the
Halvajians – and help AmeriCares, which has given his country $67.6
million in aid, celebrate its 25th anniversary.
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