NBC News and news services
PORT-AU-PRINCE - U.S. troops pulled a man alive from the rubble of a building in Haiti's destroyed capital on Tuesday, two weeks after a massive earthquake rattled the country.
The 35-year-old man, Rico Dibrivell, covered in dust and dressed only in underpants, was carried out from the ruins of a building in downtown Port-au-Prince and was driven off for medical treatment, Reuters reported.
A U.S. military spokesperson confirmed to NBC News that the 82nd Airborne rescued a Haitian man. He had injuries to at least one leg — a broken bone, the spokesperson said.
The rescue, 14 days after the magnitude-7.0 earthquake killed as many as 200,000 people, came as the U.S.-led relief effort was focused on getting help to hundreds of thousands of survivors left homeless, hungry and injured.
Most authorities had given up hope this week finding any more survivors.
The last known rescue prior to Tuesday happened on Saturday, when a man was extricated after spending 11 days under the rubble in Port-au-Prince.
Wismond Exantus, 22, told The Associated Press from his cot in a French field hospital on Sunday that the first thing he wanted to do was find a church to give thanks.
He said he spent the 11 days buried in the ruins of a hotel grocery store praying, reciting psalms and sleeping. "I wasn't afraid because I knew they were searching and would come for me," he said.
Haiti's government has declared an end to basic search operations for the living, shifting the focus to caring for the thousands surviving in squalid, makeshift camps.
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