Thailand ‘inspiring’: Czech supermodel who cheated tsunami
From Nicole Smith

WASHINGTON—Czech supermodel Petra Nemcova told how “wonderful” Thailand revived her after her charmed life was consumed by the tsunami horror in which her British boyfriend died. Nemcova, in Washington to promote an autobiography which will boost her Happy Hearts Fund charity set up for Thai tsunami victims, said she had returned twice to Thailand since the monster wave struck last December.
“It was hard, but I love Thai people, they are incredible people with inspiring hearts, there is a lot to learn from them,” the 25-year-old model said at Washington’s National Press Club. “The place is the same wonderful place, it is still my favourite country to go to,” said Nemcova, a top model for lingerie maker Victoria’s Secret who appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated 2003 Swimsuit Edition.
Nemcova’s fashion photographer boyfriend Simon Atlee, 33, was swept away in the tsunami as the pair wound up a vacation at the Thai resort of Khao Lak. She survived by grabbing the top of a palm tree, and had to wait eight hours to be airlifted to hospital. The Czech stunner only returned to her modelling career in September. Her book, “Love Always, Petra” is dedicated to Atlee, whom she said packed more in to his 33 years than most people would in 80.
She said she had been inspired to beat her pain as she lay in hospital by a Thai doctor, who left his family at home on New Year’s Eve last year, to counsel her. “He came to give me a few words, these words were to remind me of the power of the mind ... focus on something more positive, more beautiful, and it worked the next day, I didn’t have any more pain.”
The worst thing about going back to Thailand for the first time since the disaster, in May, was seeing children orphaned by the killer wave, she said. “They had blank looks, looking through you, looking without hope, they didn’t know what had happened.”
The Happy Hearts Fund, which Nemcova said had already raised more than a million dollars with events including a celebrity gala, is working with Thailand’s Chulalongkorn University on a psychological and emotional counselling program. It is also building schools and dormitories in Khao Lak.
About 5,400 people, including at least 2,436 foreigners from 37 countries, were killed when the tsunami hit Thailand last December 26. Overall, 217,000 people died in the disaster, in which a massive earthquake cantered off the Indonesian island of Sumatra set off tsunamis that wreaked destruction in 11 Indian Ocean countries.