Award for tsunami-alert girl

KENT BLECHYNDEN / The Dominion Post

THAT'S MY GIRL: Vicky Wutzler relaxes at home with her daughter, Abby, who ran along the beach to warn people a tsunami was coming.

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The gutsy actions of a Wellington schoolgirl credited with saving lives in the Samoa tsunami will be acknowledged by the Government.

Abby Wutzler, 10, was holidaying with her family at Litia Sini Beach Resort at Lalomanu when the quake and tsunami struck nearly two weeks ago. She ran the length of the beach yelling that the sea was going out and a tsunami was coming, alerting holidaymakers to head for higher ground.

Now the Civil Defence Ministry is set to give Abby an award for what it describes as her gutsy actions, in an informal ceremony in front of her family and school friends at Karori West Normal School on Wednesday.

Ministry director John Hamilton will present an award to both Abby and her former teacher Kay Mudge who taught lessons at Makara Model School from the What's The Plan Stan teaching resource about tsunamis.

"I just feel now that I've made a difference in a world," Mrs Mudge said. "I feel so incredibly proud of her. I feel that all that work I do, it was all worth it because of this."

Mrs Mudge taught Abby for four years and said she focused on disasters because of the remote setting of the school in Makara.

"We covered disasters every second year ... because the river often floods, we have had some big fires. And after the Boxing Day tsunami the kids were fascinated by it."

Mrs Mudge, who has taught on-and-off for 25 years, said Abby was always really interested in tsunamis. "She asked me lots of questions and when Vicky [Abby's mother] came in and said she'd been having nightmares, I thought `Oh perhaps I've overdone it'."

Abby said yesterday she was quite happy when her parents told her about the award. She said children needed to learn about tsunamis so they could inform adults. "Otherwise if there is one, who would tell them?"

She would consider going back to Samoa. "I might, depends where I am staying. Somewhere where I can look at the water, not be in the water."