John Chroston

Who is John Chroston?

John Chroston of Tillicoultry, Clackmannanshire, a biology teacher at Falkirk High School, Scotland, was one of the few tourists present during the Indian Ocean earthquake able to recognise tsunami warning signs and prompt a beach evacuation.

Chroston, then 48 years old, was holidaying at Kamala Bay, near Phuket, Thailand, with his daughter Rebecca and his wife Sandra Adams, a professor at Stirling University. He was swimming when the sea receded, and instantly recognised the early-warning sign for a tsunami. He ran up the beach, sounding the alarm, gathering up his wife and daughter.

With the assistance of a Thai doctor, Harpreet Grover, Chroston persuaded a hotel shuttle bus driver to turn his bus around and take passengers to high ground. The bus stopped to pick up a few Thai women and children on the way, and was at one point engulfed by the wave, but managed to pull through and reached high ground.