Maple Ridge family stuck in Indonesia following deadly quake

LOMBOK, Indonesia (NEWS 1130) – A B.C. family is trapped on the Indonesian island of Lombok after yesterday’s devastating earthquake that has killed at least 90 people.

Maple Ridge woman Jennifer Montgomery-Lay is stuck on the island with her husband Jared Lay, along with their 20-year-old daughter Logan and 13-year-old son Brody.

She says getting off the tourist island to connect with flights back to Canada is now a big problem.

“There’s none available for the next two days–they’re all booked to anywhere that we could find. All the fast boats that operate between Bali and Lombok and Gili have been stopped,” says Montgomery-Lay.

“We’ve sort of been instructed to just hang tight.”

The family was coming to the end of a six-month worldwide bucket-list trip, after their daughter Logan relapsed again in her long-running battle with cancer. She says that is difficult while having to endure the more than 100 aftershocks since Sunday’s quake, even more so when one of your children has a life-threatening illness.

“We were here on Lombok packing our bags getting ready to leave and we were hit with a 7.0 earthquake and multiple earthquakes since.”

She says the first quake shook the three-storey villa they were staying at.

“Concrete came off the walls, glass was falling in the pool. It honestly felt like we were in quicksand if we tried to move as the building was shaking.”

Montgomery-Lay explains there’s a lot of cracks in the building, pieces of the building falling off, adding anything that might fall off the building could hit someone and cause serious harm, or worse. Emotionally, she says the family is coming out of a state of shock, and now they’re scared.

“It’s also really hard to see the people who live here–there are people who work at the hotel who have lost their homes that are sleeping on the street [outside of our hotel] to take care of us today. It’s quite something really,” she tells NEWS 1130 as her voice breaks.

After the quakes they were moved to a “safer” part of the hotel– she says everyone there has been crammed into the last stable spaces.

Now, they’re looking for a way out. Ferry service may have resumed, according to Montgomery-Lay, but she says they’ve been receiving mixed information and can’t tell if relief is on the horizon. She says if anyone knows of an airline contact or someone who has information that may help them return home safely, she asks you reach out to her and her family via their blog.

-With files from Adam Cooper