Santa Rosa residents remember life in Kathmandu

When Santa Rosa resident Jay Chapman lived in Kathmandu for ?10 years he kept a pry bar near his bed, fearful that an earthquake would damage his apartment so badly he’d need the tool to help himself get out.

News that Saturday’s 7.8-magnitude quake, followed by huge aftershocks, had devastated much of the Nepalese capital and surrounding area didn’t surprise Chapman who had observed that safety regulations were not a factor in the distant country’s building industry.

“The construction was not like anything you know here. The concrete is mixed by hand, with varying quality. A lot of the old, old buildings have no rebar” and many brick buildings have no mortar and no reinforcements, said Chapman, Sonoma County’s longtime forensic pathologist who was brought back to work part time. He returned to Santa Rosa in 2008 after a decade in Nepal teaching forensic pathology to medical students at the Institute of Medicine at Tribhuvan University.

It was common knowledge that attempts by the government to set earthquake standards for construction and building safety often were waylaid by briberies. “The level of corruption is such that no one enforces these laws,” he said.

“I bought a pry bar that I had next to my bed just in case it might be found useful in an earthquake. Most likely, however, I would have been squashed flat as a pancake had a quake occurred,” Chapman said.

Friday and Saturday a greatly concerned Chapman spent hours combing through news reports and video clips and reaching out to former students, friends and colleagues to see how they and their families had fared.

“You can go through the old part of Kathmandu and see the poor construction and know that if there was any magnitude earthquake at all there would be tremendous damage and loss of life. It was predictable and expected,” said Chapman, who has returned several times to Nepal since moving back to Santa Rosa. “When I heard the magnitude of the earthquake, I knew it had to be substantial. It is so sad.”

Memories of Kathmandu are fresh for Santa Rosa High School junior Ashlee Ruggels, 16, who was there in late March.

She and her mother, Calei Ruggels, went for a 10-day medical mission through the American charity Healing the Children. Calei Ruggels is a surgical nurse who worked on a surgical team correcting foot deformities, while her daughter assisted with the patients however possible.

Ashlee on Sunday said her memories of the still-healing patients, new friends and the welcoming sound of “Namaste” greetings that were routinely given were colliding with news of the widespread destruction and so many deaths.

“Hearing the news, my heart definitely dropped out of my chest,” the teen said.

“My first thought was I have to go back. My other thought was, I had to contact everyone I knew there right away, but all of the phone lines are down. The hospital is fine, the doctors are fine, but there is no way of knowing how the patients are,” she said.

While the threat of an earthquake wasn’t on their minds while they were there, she couldn’t help but notice the disintegrating state of many of the buildings.

“We went to a school for the deaf and hard of hearing. I’m sure it is in ruins, it was already crumbling,” she said. “I wasn’t surprised that I heard that everything fell.”

“Weirdly enough when we first came in (to the country), we were joking with our driver about earthquakes. He said ‘Oh we never get those.’?”

You can reach Staff Writer Randi Rossmann at 521-5412 or randi.rossmann?@pressdemocrat.com.