The Herald catches up with people who have been in the news in the past year
He wants to put the whole experience behind him, but earthquake survivor Xavier Trousselot-Rhodes is finding that's easier said than done.
Xavier, 16, has found the tag of "the kid who fell out of the house" is not easy to shake. Neither are the vivid memories of the near-death experience when the devastating 7.1-magnitude quake hit Canterbury on September 4.
The Canterbury teenager was sleeping in a second-storey bedroom in his father's 91-year-old Hororata homestead when the quake struck. He was woken violently to the house "screaming" and dust clouds, and as he shifted towards the bedroom wall for safety, he found it was no longer there.
He fell 5m to the ground on to his back, wearing only his boxers, with bricks piled on top of him. Dad Allan Rhodes rushed to clear the bricks off him and, remarkably, Xavier emerged without injury. Mum Kris Trousselot is convinced God saved her son that day.
"It's hard to describe," Xavier told the Herald when asked to reflect on the events of September 4.
"It was just something I never expected - to wake up to an earthquake."
He's still amazed "when I look at our house, and how messed up it is, and how I didn't actually get hurt".
While the experience pops back into his mind often, he tries not to dwell on it, and to get on with life. Over the school holidays he has been labouring to earn some money, and helping his father with pulling apart the wrecked homestead.
The interest in his story has continued months later, but Xavier is not fazed by it.
"It's quite entertaining".
