World News – AU – Australians whose two-year-old son died in Beirut explosion break silence

Posted: 3:48 AM EDT October 5, 2020 | Updated: 3:48 a.m. EDT October 5, 2020

Australian family have spoken of their relentless fight to save their son’s life after he was killed in the Beirut explosion

Isaac Oehlers was seriously injured after being hit by shards of glass while sitting in his high chair when the explosion rocked the Lebanese capital on August 4

Speaking of their ordeal, her parents Sarah Copland and Craig Oehlers recounted their struggle to save her life before the two-year-old died in hospital

Issac was the only Australian to die in the horrific explosion caused by the detonation of an ammonium nitrate stockpile

The family unit was only about 700 meters from the blast site and the toddler was injured while sitting in his high chair

Sarah Copland and Craig Oehlers spoke for the first time about their fight to save her son Isaac (pictured) after the Beirut explosion

Ms Copland was thrown to the ground by the killing wave after all the windows in their fourth-floor apartment were blown out, while Mr Oehlers was in the bathroom and rushed to a horrible scene

‘There were pieces of live wire hanging from the ceiling It was utter devastation and of course the first thing I thought about was, « Oh my God! Where is Isaac? Where is Sarah? » And I ran as fast as I could from the bathroom to the living room,  » he told ABC’s Four Corners.

The young family retreated to the bathroom where they saw the extent of Isaac’s injuries, including a huge chest injury from a large piece of glass

They fled to the street to get to the hospital for treatment where they discovered the devastation caused by the explosion

The explosion killed at least 200 people, injured thousands and reduced once bustling cosmopolitan streets to rubles

Ms Copland was forced to stand in the middle of the busy street to arrest a local man, who took the family to Rafic Hariri hospital

She recalled that the man was driving at full speed on the wrong side of the road to avoid traffic and bring the family to medical help

The two-year-old boy is the sole Australian victim of the terrible Beirut explosion (pictured) on August 4

Sarah Copland and Craig Oehlers (pictured together) had been trying to leave Beirut for months before the explosion, but were unable to do so due to the coronavirus pandemic

Upon arrival at the hospital, Ms Copland was taken for treatment with large shards of glass in her head, leaving Mr Oehlers going to the operating room with Isaac

He said it was a devastating experience that will stay with him for the rest of his life

‘I’ll tell you what No parent should ever have to be in the same room as their child, who is on an operating table, and see the flat line of the heart monitor and hear all the alarms going off. trigger,  » said M Oehlers

The family had been trying to leave Beirut for months but had been trapped in the city amid the coronavirus pandemic

They had managed to book a flight back to Perth at the end of August, but unfortunately the whole family did not make the trip

‘They closed the airports We couldn’t leave to come home So we had made several attempts to come back this year and we were so close and only three weeks apart and our whole life would be just as they were meant to be, ‘Ms Copland said

The couple have since returned home, where Ms Copland is due to give birth to a baby boy within a few weeks

Port blast killed at least 200 people, injured thousands, and ruined once-busy cosmopolitan streets

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Beirut, Lebanon