Island resident feels earthquake hit, comes to aid of victims in Iran

An Islander in Iran shaken by Sunday's deadly earthquake spent the night treating victims in a local hospital.

Dr. Shahram Shojaei, who has lived in New Glasgow, P.E.I., since 2011, spends a few months a year working at a private hospital in Kermanshaw province a region in western Iran hardest hit by the 7.3 magnitude earthquake.

Sunday night he was in his third floor apartment in Iran when he felt his apartment shake.

"I heard a bad sound and it took about one minute," he said.

Shojaei said he and others fled their homes as the earthquake rumbled. People slept in the streets overnight, he said, and about 900 people were taken to the private hospital where he works.

They lost a foot, ahand and also a problem in chest from rocks.- Dr. Shahram Shojaei

"I saw and I treated some people," he said. "They lost a foot, ahand and also a problem in chest from rocks."

The quake killed more than 400 people in Iran and injured about 7,000 others, according to news agencies.

Shojaei said there was "good news after all the bad news" for at least one family.

"We found a little girl, she was about five yearsold and she lost her father and mother. We treat[ed] her in hospital and after three or four hours we found her fatherand after that I found out her mother is injured and she's alive."

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