SANTA CRUZ, St Elizabeth – Cleon Fagan will forever be thankful that on the night of Hurricane Dean last week Sunday he went to sleep with his head pointing south and not north.

For when Fagan, a 26-year-old barber was shocked out of his sleep at the height of the storm he found himself covered from the neck down in stones, bricks and dirt triggered by the collapse of the 116-year-old Malvern Police Station, next door.

The frightening tale, as told by Fagan, begun “a couple of hours” earlier as he prepared to wait out the storm in his rented house, 400 metres away from his barber shop – adjacent to the police station.

As the winds intensified, Fagan lost confidence in the solidity of the structure he called home. “Mi neva like how the place feel, so mi decide to leave and come down to the barber shop where mi believe mi would be safer,” he told the Observer last Wednesday.

So Fagan went to his car and drove to his barber shop. As it turned out, he did right to abandon the house. Sometime after he left, the old building collapsed.

All of that would have been unknown to him as he gradually grew weary of listening to the radio and decided to go to sleep. Fagan believed he had chosen his rest area well – a small annex with concrete on all sides furnished with a comfortable settee.

As he tells it, so enclosed was the small area he could hardly hear the howling storm outside as he went to sleep securely wrapped in a sheet.

He struggled to explain his horror and confusion when he “jumped” out of his sleep to find himself unable to move and covered from toe to neck in wet earth and large stones.

“Only mi head and mi right hand free,” he said, “any how mi did go sleep with mi head the other way, mi dead.”

His first move, an instinctive violent jerk of his right hand in a bid to free himself, caused more problems: A large stone that had been on his chest rolled on to his face.

“Is mi face mi have to use to push off the stone,” demonstrating with butting motions of his head which still bore scars and swellings. To complicate matters, Fagan now found that the sheet he had wrapped himself in and a jacket he was wearing proved to be major hindrances. “is mi teeth mi have fi use and tear, tear the sheet and the jacket.” he said, his voice falling away. His discomfort was heightened by water flowing from a concrete tank above the barber shop which was broken as the police station fell.

Even as he struggled to free himself, Fagan shouted for help. It later transpired that policemen contemplating their own troubles heard the frantic cries but could not locate the source.

“Everytime them come round to this side dem do’n hear nuthin, but when they go back roun’ to the station side they hear the sound again,” he said.

His struggles gradually paid off. Biting, twisting and turning, he slowly got his left hand free and with the help of a piece of a construction steel rod that had also fallen on him he managed to dig himself out. The ordeal had lasted several hours – he is unsure how many.

Over the past week, Fagan and others who sorted through the ruins came up with theories as to how he managed to escape albeit with numerous bruises and pains all over his body necessitating out-patient visits to the Mandeville Regional Hospital.

Primarily, they believe, his life was saved because the first pile of debris to hit his body was dirt – cushioning the impact of the stones and bricks which followed.

Fagan also believes the water from the overhead tank – though a source of discomfort – helped him. “It soften the dirt and mek it easier to dig out,” he said.