In Chile as Earth Shook: Jose Leon’s Story

It's not uncommon these days for "Nightline" producers to shoot their own stories on digital cameras — and the segment embedded below is an example of that. But there's a bit more to it. Melia Patria, pictured above in Chile, was in Santiago on February 27 for another assignment when the 8.8 magnitude quake struck. With surrounding airports damaged and closed, American news crews scrambled to access the quake devastation from neighboring countries. Already on the scene, Patria got to work — perhaps, among the first reporters from an American television network there, if not the first. Patria would file multiple reports from Santiago — a producer suddenly playing the role of correspondent, but perhaps more importantly, thrust into the powerful position of being a network point person during an historic news event.  Patria embedded with the Chilean military during a dispatch into Concepcion to maintain security in the ravaged city. It is then that she hit the streets with translator Peter Murphy Lewis, an American professor at the University of Chile. There, she tells the story of the Alto Rio condominium — a collapsed apartment building dubbed "ground zero" — and one family's hope to find a missing son — Jose Luis Leon — after a quake so strong, it literally knocked the world off its axis. Please forward this story along. Nice work, Patria.