Iran quake victim to be buried in SR

Bay Area man, fiancee among first to be dug from rubble of inn in Bam

January 1, 2004

By GUY KOVNER THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Tobb Dell'Oro, the Bay Area man killed in Friday's earthquake in Iran, will be buried in Santa Rosa by his family, grieving from his loss, his sister said Wednesday.

A Santa Rosa funeral home is working with the U.S. State Department on the return of Dell'Oro's body from Iran, expected by early next week, said Tam Dell'Oro, his older sister and business partner.

Their parents, Walter and Jean Dell'Oro, Santa Rosa residents for more than 20 years, are staying at Tam Dell'Oro's home in Portola Valley. They were too distraught to be interviewed, she said.

Tobb Dell'Oro, 41, touring Iran with his fiancee, Adele C. Freedman, a Mountain View lawyer, died of injuries sustained in the devastating temblor that virtually leveled the ancient city of Bam before daylight Friday. He was the lone American among the 28,000 quake victims, and Iranian officials said Wednesday the death toll could reach 50,000.

Tam Dell'Oro praised the gracious and generous treatment Iranians gave her brother -- in life and in death.

Dell'Oro and Freedman were among the first victims dug by hand from the rubble of the inn at which they were staying in Bam, and both were conscious and coherent when rescued, Tam Dell'Oro said. Because both of Bam's hospitals had collapsed, the American couple was loaded into a car that sped toward Kerman, the provincial capital 120 miles away.

The Iranian rescuers are "heroes," Tam Dell'Oro said. "They saved Adele's life before they saved their own people."

Freedman, 39, suffered a crushed thigh and foot and is recovering from multiple operations at a hospital in Tehran. Her parents, Annamae and Philip Freedman of East Hampton, N.Y., were scheduled to leave Wednesday for Iran and hope to bring their daughter home by Monday.

Tobb Dell'Oro bled to death in the car bound for Kerman, his sister said.

The State Department told the Dell-'Oros Iran will seek no compensation for Tobb's medical care or embalming.

"Can you imagine how generous that is?" Tam Dell'Oro said. "In my opinion the Iranian people are reaching their hand out to America."

Tam Dell'Oro hailed her brother as an adventurer, "like Indiana Jones," passionate about travel and about lobbying officials for peace and justice between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

The three Dell'Oro children grew up in Saudi Arabia, where their father, Walter, a geologist for the state-owned oil company, explored the Arabian peninsula and spotted drilling sites in the 1940s, '50s and '60s.

The third sibling, Torr Dell'Oro, attended Santa Rosa Junior College and now works as an aircraft electronics technician in Saudi Arabia.

Tobb Dell'Oro, who earned master's degrees in engineering and business administration at Cornell University, provided the drive to grow his sister's Redwood City marketing firm, Dell'Oro Group, which specializes in telecommunications industry analysis.

"To not have him here is very, very difficult," Tam Dell'Oro said.