Kent News - Fire-fighters reveal the horrors of Haiti rescues

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Fire-fighters reveal the horrors of Haiti rescues

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Kent fire-fighters in Haiti

KENT NEWS: As desperate efforts continued to tackle to the human suffering in stricken Haiti this week, the head of Kent’s fire-fighter rescue team spoke of the devastation they saw before they flew back to the UK.

In his account of the disaster, which left more than 200,000 people dead and two million homeless, firefighter John Mazzey revealed the despair the team were faced with when they first arrived in the wrecked capital of Port-au-Prince.

He said: “It was complete chaos – there were bodies everywhere and people were taking them away for mass burial.

“It was a hard thing to see, but the team supported each other – we’ve discussed things we’ve seen and talked things through.

“We’ve got an extremely motivated and enthusiastic crew.”

Mr Mazzey and five others from Kent Fire and Rescue Service’s (KFRS) specialist search and rescue team were deployed to Haiti almost immediately after the earthquake hit on Tuesday, January 12.

They spent 10 days searching for survivors with the UK International Search and Rescue (UK-ISAR) team.

But last weekend, hopes of finding people alive faded and the search was called off.
The team arrived back at the UK-ISAR base in Maidstone on Saturday and returned to their normal lives.

But despite leaving the devastation behind, Mr Mazzey admitted the shocking images will always stay with them.

“In one area, if you turned around 360 degrees and looked in every direction everywhere was flattened,” he said.

“There are few trees in Haiti so everything is built from concrete which when shaken crushes everything beneath it.

“We were looking for voids which we could get into to try and get people out.”

One rescue saw the team tunnel for several hours to reach a man trapped by rubble.

Mr Mazzey said: “There was a 60-year-old man trapped in a collapsed building – he had been asleep in bed when the earthquake hit.

“We tunnelled for hours and found him alive, but we saw there was a body of one of his relatives near to him.”

When they arrived on the Caribbean island they went from building to building in their designated areas to try and find survivors.

Mr Mazzey, who assisted in the aftermath of earthquakes in Iran in 2003 and Indonesia in 2009, said: “Some of our best leads were from local people. They knew which buildings had people inside and we had equipment that could break through concrete.”

Just days after their arrival the Kent team were sent 25 miles west to the flattened town of Leogane.

Working in temperatures of more than 90 degrees, the crew continued their desperate search as time ticked by.

Mr Mazzey said: “It was very hot. We started out wearing lightweight uniforms, but because of all the body fluids everywhere we had to change into more protective, heavier gear.”

While continuing their mission, a major aftershock hit and 15 members of the UK-ISAR, which totalled 64 staff from the UK’s fire and rescue services, were flown to the town of Petit-Guave to investigate the damage.

The Kent team stayed in Port-au-Prince to search areas that had not yet been reached, and helped in numerous rescues.

Mr Mazzey said: “There were 13 different fire services, which meant searches and
rescues could continue 24 hours a day.

“Our base camp was at the airport, about 100 metres from the runway and the first couple of nights we slept under the stars.”

Despite having security on hand in case they were targeted by locals desperate for food, Mr Mazzey said they had no trouble.

“Our equipment was expensive so we had to be careful it wasn’t stolen by someone desperate to make some money,” he added.

Mr Mazzey stressed the team arrived with their own food and managed to get water by using a filter system. “We made sure we weren’t a burden on the country,” he said.

Asked about any possibility of going back, he said: “The window for search and rescue is closed. Now it’s about getting all those people aid and getting them independent again.”

POSTED: 30/01/2010 14:00:00