Woman with Warren ties survived Nepal earthquake

WARREN — Donna Tolley and the 17 other massage therapists from 12 countries she traveled with in Nepal starting in April went to the South Asian country planning to offer therapeutic massage to the people of the high Himalayan villages.

“Many of the people here have no access to medicine and work very hard their entire lives in the mountains and have a lot of chronic pain and injuries,” said Tolley, whose mother, stepfather and grandmother live in Warren.

They are her mother, Randi Palmer; Randi’s husband, Dennis Csiszer; and her grandmother, Donnagene Palmer.

Little did the massage therapists know, it would be they who would would need help, as a 7.8-magnitude earthake hit the country April 25, stranding them in a small village in the Tsum Valley called Burji for eight days. The quake has killed at least 5,000 people. Fortunately for the group, they were in an open field when it hit, several weeks after their arrival in the country.

“We watched boulders crashing down the mountains around us and enjoyed the beauty of mother nature and didn’t realize the magnitude of damage all around us,” she said.

For the complete story, read Sunday's Vindicator and Vindy.com