Sixteen year-old Darlene Etienne spent 15 days under a collapsed building, apparently without food or water, until a French rescue team pulled her out on January 27.

The number of people trapped in rubble and surviving beyond six days without food or water is extremely rare.

After a week aboard the French hospital ship Siroco, Darlene was flown to a field hospital set up on the grounds of a French school here, where she met her mother and relatives.

Kerline Etienne wiped away tears as Darlene's brother Pricelin and her cousin Josselyn jumped with joy and rushed to hug her.

Dressed in a blue hospital gown and sitting on a wheelchair, Darlene barely had enough strength to react when her mother took her hand.

"Are you doing okay? Can you eat now?" asked Christophe Antzenberger, one of the French rescuers.

Darlene shook her head, looking past the people around her. Her mother knelt in front of her wheelchair.

Darlene was more talkative the day she was rescued. "Save me!" she shouted when she heard a neighbor searching through the debris. When the neighbor responded, Darlene was able to tell him her family's telephone number.

It took the French rescue team an hour and a half to dig her out.

"It is a pleasure to see her in good shape," says Gwenael Bardoul, another rescue team member. "When she was pulled from under the rubble, she was very tired."

Colonel Michel Orcel, one of the French military doctors, said it is hard to believe that a person could survive so long without food or water.

"We tried to check if she had something to drink. We sent specialists to the location, but no water was found," he said.

"Her case calls into question everything we thought we knew about human physiology."

A translator named Pierre-Paul, interpreting for Darlene's mother, keeps repeating that the girl's survival is a gift from God.

"We were so happy to learn that she survived," says Pompee Emmanuel, the neighbor who alerted the rescue team. "Neighbors even organized a party in her honor."

Darlene's 18-year-old brother Pricelin said her survival was a miracle.

"She told me she was very happy because today she had found her family again," he said.

When the quake struck, Darlene was at her aunt's home, which collapsed. Darlene was trapped in an air pocket under the rubble.

The Etienne family survived the January 12 earthquake, but their home was destroyed and they moved in with relatives who live north of Port-au-Prince.

however won't immediately go to the family's new home, as

Orcel said that Darlene must spend up two to three more days under medical observation before she is released to her relatives.

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