Supermodel Petra Nemcova opens up 20 years after surviving deadly tsunami
In 2004, supermodel Petra Nemcova was on a dream vacation in Thailand with her boyfriend, fashion photographer Simon Atlee, when a tsunami tore through their bungalow.
Atlee was swept away in the chaos as he called out Nemcova’s name. Nemcova, then 25, survived by clinging to a palm tree for nearly eight hours.
ABC News’ Diane Sawyer interviewed Nemcova in the months after the tragedy. Now, 20 years after one of the deadliest natural disasters in modern history, Petra sat down with Sawyer again to reflect on the horrors of that day, and the kindness of strangers that got her out alive.
"It's always difficult to go back in that moment when my life changed," Nemcova told Sawyer in an interview that aired Thursday on "Good Morning America."
Nemcova and Atlee were packing up to leave a resort in Khao Lak on Dec. 26, 2004, when the tsunami hit, sending massive waves crashing into their bungalow.
As water pulled them outside, Nemcova said she managed to grab onto the top of a palm tree, which she clung to for nearly eight hours before being rescued.
"I went into this stillness, into almost like a meditative state, because I knew if I start panicking, you lose more energy," Nemcova said of the time. "And I needed all my energy to keep alive."
As she clung to the tree, Nemcova said she heard the screams of people crying out for help, including young children.
“I couldn't go and, and swim to them or try to help them because I couldn't move my legs,” she told Sawyer in their original 2005 interview.
When Atlee's body was found and formally identified on March 3, 2004, he became one of the nearly 230,000 people believed to have died in the disaster, which also impacted parts of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, the Maldives, Myanmar, Somalia and Malaysia.
For Nemcova, it was a miracle of kindness that saved her. When she was found, her clothes had been torn off by the storm and she had suffered a shattered pelvis and internal injuries.
The people who rescued Nemcova were strangers who gave her clothes and placed her on a floating mattress to steer her through the debris toward medical help, she said.
"Those people were ready to risk their lives for strangers," Nemcova said of her rescuers. "And that shows you the best of humanity."
A mission to help children after the storm
After surviving the tsunami, Nemcova said it was not clear physically whether she would ever walk again. Nor was she sure emotionally how she would recover from the grief of losing Atlee.
"At the time when I didn't know if I'm gonna walk fully, I was focusing [on] 'OK, I have my hands. I can do things. I have my eyes. I can see. I have my ears. I can hear," she told Sawyer.
Nemcova said as she worked to recover personally, she couldn't get out of her memory the screams she heard from children crying out for help during the tsunami.
She said those memories helped fuel a mission she has continued for the two decades since.
"That day of tsunami, I didn't have a choice to help children," Nemcova said. "But today and every day, I have a choice, and that keeps moving me every day. And we all have a choice every day."
Using her own money, Nemcova launched a nonprofit organization, now called All Hands and Hearts, to support people devastated by natural disasters.
"The two, three months after natural disasters, that's usually the time when ... different organizations leave," Nemcova said of the need for ongoing support in hard-hit communities, adding, "And if there is no more support from organizations, you are like, 'How [am] I ever gonna rebuild my life?'"
Her goal was to build a coalition that would come into the aftermath of disasters and stay to help, long after the world’s attention has gone away.
Nemcova has built the organization into a global army of nearly 70,000 volunteers who over the years have shown up after tsunamis, hurricanes and tornadoes to help rebuild schools and get homeowners back on their feet.
Earlier this year, when Hurricane Helene left widespread destruction in the mountains of North Carolina, Nemcova's All Hands and Hearts organization arrived to help.
"We were there [on] day two, and we made a commitment to stay for one year," Nemcova said, adding that the organization plans to help 500 families in North Carolina.
All Hands and Hearts is also helping to support people in Florida impacted by Hurricane Milton in October, as well as residents of Maui in Hawaii who were impacted by last year's deadly wildfires. The organization says it is also working on school construction projects in Mexico, Nepal and the Philippines.
Nemcova said with "a lot" more work to do, the organization is always looking for more volunteers.
Among the current army of volunteers is the family of her late boyfriend, Atlee.
In 2019, Nemcova married entrepreneur Benjamin Larretche, and the two of them welcomed a son, Bodhi.
"I have a son and I have a beautiful husband, and there's so many blessings to be grateful for," Nemcova said, noting that after Atlee's death, his family and friends "embraced" her with love.
"I was lucky, because I met my other twin flame ... Ben is my twin flame and he is an incredible soul, and I just feel so lucky, because I didn't know it was going to happen," she added.
When the 20th anniversary of the tsunami arrives on Dec. 26, Nemcova will be alongside All Hands and Hearts' volunteers lighting candles in memory of the 2004 disaster, and as a sign of hope for people today.
"We will invite everybody to join us to light a candle to bring more light to the world,” she said.
