George Hiha and Joseph, who has cancer. Photo / APN
Weeping mothers wheeled their sick children out of Christchurch Hospital as aftershocks led to an evacuation.
Across the road people huddled in blankets as they watched emergency services swerve around grid-locked traffic.
George Hiha, 36, of Waltham, was in tears as she wheeled her 3-year-old son Joseph Thomas out of
the oncology ward.
The pair had to wait for medication while other patients were evacuated.
Ms Hiha was badly shaken from the quake and distressed about how they would get home.
She didn't know how her sick son would fare in the cold wind if she tried to walk to her mother's home in Sydenham.
"He's just so feeble. He's got no spleen," she said.
Ms Hiha's mother was trying to reach the pair as traffic backed up around the city.
Joseph, wrapped up in blankets in his wheelchair, was at the hospital for an infection from the operation to remove his spleen.
He has had cancer since birth. "I just wanted to keep him safe, I was looking around for things that could possibly fall on him," Ms Hiha said.
Little Joseph kept smiling despite the distress around him.
"I think he goes into safe mode, while Mummy is running around trying to get his drugs and hold it together," Ms Hiha said. "He's such a primo kid."
Ms Hiha didn't know what to do. As they stood waiting, a member of the public came and offered to help them. The St Martins woman offered to walk Ms Hiha and her son home, several kilometres away. Ms Hiha was grateful for the support.
Chantel Heaven was hooked up to a monitor when the magnitude-6 earthquake hit. At 30 weeks pregnant, the Ashburton woman got a bit of a fright.
"It was pretty scary," she said.
"We were on the first floor and I just kept thinking about all the floors above us and everything that could fall on us."
She said the baby had kicked several times.
Mrs Heaven, her husband and her 3-year-old daughter Annabel sat in Hagley Park and watched as people left the hospital. They were concerned about how they would make the journey home to Ashburton.
"We might have to sit in the car for a while."
