SYDNEY 2005-01-01 08:30--Mother of two, Jillian Searle, had to choose between her children when she made a life--or--death decision. Swept up by mountainous tsunami waves at a Thai resort, she could not hold on to both her young sons and survive. Fighting to stay above the waters, she had to choose which one would have to take his chances in the swirling torrent. "I knew I had to let go of one of them and I just thought I'd better let go of the one that's the older," she told Sky News television in a report broadcast on Thursday. She said she was accompanied by the two, Lachie, 5, and two--year--old Blake, and their father, Brad, who had watched the drama helplessly from their first-floor hotel room, when the waves struck." And I was screaming, trying to find _ , and we thought he was dead."she told reporters on arrival back in Australia. Lachie was found alive about 2 hours later clinging to a door and looked uninjured as his mother spoke to reporters. British surfer Martin Markwell is also a lucky man. He had always dreamed of catching that perfect wave--but when it finally came along, it was a nightmare. He was on his surfboard when he was swept up by a tsunami wave. "It was really terrible because I was surfing, I was really surfing on a wave I wasn't supposed to be on,"he said. "As an experienced surfer, when I saw the wave come I realized something was wrong, but I couldn't escape because my surfboard was tied to my ankle." His wife, Vicki and son Jake looked on in horror from a hotel balcony as he crashed towards the shore. Luckily, he stayed atop his board until he reached the hotel, jumped off and got to safety as the ocean rolled back to feed a much larger tsunami wave on its way. The family regrouped and ran to safety just minute before a giant tsunami wave 10 meters high. When the waves struck ,the father Brad  _  .
reported the disaster to Sky News television was watching a drama on TV in the hotel tried to find his son lost in the waters watched things going on, unable to do anything