Model Petra Nemcova shares tsunami tragedy

Petra Nemcova talks about her harrowing experience and the death of her boyfriend, Simon Atlee, in the pounding waters of the Asian tsunami, in an interview to air on ABC.

"There are lots of things which I would love to tell him, but in some way, I also feel that I lost the person closest to me," the 25-year-old supermodel tells Diane Sawyer on "Primetime Live," airing tonight. "And I got a second chance to live. So in a way I feel that I live for both of us . . . and I will do my best."

Nemcova and Atlee, a 33-year-old British fashion photographer, were vacationing at the resort of Phuket in Thailand when the waves swept through their beach hut on Dec. 26. Nemcova was pulled away from Atlee and eventually clung to a palm tree for nearly eight hours before being rescued.

Nemcova, recovering in her native Czech Republic, says her pelvis was breaking "many times, I was just screaming at the top of my lungs."

At one point, she believed she was going to drown. "You just start (to) swallow the black water. It was quite peaceful in that moment, because I thought it's, you know, 'that's it. All right.' "

While clinging to the palm tree, Nemcova said, "the hardest thing is just, you know, not knowing if Simon's still somewhere. And needs help."

Officials in Thailand said Tuesday that Atlee's body had been found and identified on March 3.

Dr. Elton Strauss, chief of orthopedic trauma and adult reconstruction at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York, said Nemcova fractured every bone in her pelvis and is "truly a miracle person. I don't know how she survived."

Nemcova says going back to modeling isn't in her thoughts: "In the moment, I live day by day."

The official death toll from the tsunami ranges from 173,324 to 182,340. The number of missing ranges from 107,853 to 129,897 — with most presumed dead.