By CLIFFORD FAIPARIK
LYING on the bed in the Popondetta General Hospital, a shocked Amen Jacob is coming to terms of losing both her husband and baby to the devastating floods that hit her village last week.
Jacob, from Kopore village, lost her two-month-old baby and husband to the flooded Eroro River last Thursday night in the Oro Bay area.
She was with her husband and four children including her baby in their garden house when the flood suddenly hit them.
A relative, Owen Baia, who recounted events on her behalf, said she and her husband and children tried to climb up a coconut tree to escape the flood.
Her husband and the older children climbed up the tree first.
Jacob and the baby were the last to climb. But as she tried to climb, the flood hit her, and she lost grip of her baby.
As she did not want to release her baby, both of them fell into the river and were swept away.
The eldest daughter, who is 12, jumped in after her mother and the baby, and she too, was swept away.
The coconut tree was then uprooted by the flood water and the husband and the other children were also swept downstream.
Jacob was washed up at Eroro station, about 3km away, and was found by the villagers last Friday morning.
She broke her right arm after being hit by a tree branch.
She was then brought to the Kadereda Health Centre.
Her three children were also found near the station last Friday.
But unfortunately, her husband and baby died.
Their bodies were later found by the villagers.
She was brought to Kikiri near Gona in a dinghy, about 60km away from Kadereda.
Youths from Kikiri then carried her on a stretcher and walked about 40km to Popondetta General Hospital.
She is now recovering from the surgery she underwent but is still in a state of shock at what happened to her family.