When a volcano erupts and you are the rescuer - Emergency services look back at Whakaari

Monday, 7 December 2020

Twelve months ago emergency services scrambled as one unit to get help to those caught in the Whakaari eruption. They share some of their stories from that fateful day.

An emergency call shortly after 2.11pm changed everything.

“There’s been a volcanic eruption at White Island. There are about 100 people there. Multiple are seriously injured and there are deceased patients.”

St John Deputy Director Dr Craig Ellis received the call and immediately thought it was a joke or an exercise. At least he wished it was.

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As if preempting this natural assumption the caller said, “This is not a joke or an exercise.”

Over the next six hours he would receive 200 phone calls. One every thirty seconds as he raced to accommodate the scores of injured patients soon to arrive.

Bay of Plenty District Superintendent Andy McGregor was standing at an airport about to board a plane when he received news of the eruption. The priority was finding out numbers.

“We sent a sergeant down to White Island Tours to get more information,” he said.

“From that, we learned there were two boatloads of people and a helicopter.”

He was confronted with the task of leading a rescue effort, initially remotely, from a remote island 40 kilometres off the coast.

Kahu NZ helicopter pilot Mark Law saw the eruption from the skies and set about getting out to help. He was among the first to land on the island to offer first aid.

“I came across all the people on the island, so we checked them out, ran first aid and assistance, and radioed back.

Whakatane hospital was prepping for a swarm of badly burned patients.

Casualties start landing as more help arrives

Those who were able to on the island had scrambled their way back to the boats. They were burned and in a shell-shocked state and began the long trip back.

“That boat ride was agony,” one survivor said. On board, whatever help people could offer was provided by staff and passengers even if that just meant singing as people died.

Ellis was working to coordinate what was, outside the Christchurch earthquake, New Zealand’s largest mass-casualty event in decades.

“Patients had been caught in a pyroclastic cloud,” he said. “Hot gas. Hot chemicals. Sand particles under pressure had hit patients. Patients had burns to skin and airways. There was a multitude of injuries from traumatic injuries where people had been thrown into, or hit by, rocks.”

Whakatane hospital was not equipped to handle such a load of patients. Air power was the answer. Ellis directed air ambulances and helicopters to Whakatane. This allowed resources to be brought in while providing air transport the other way.

McGregor was also getting updates as he travelled.

“The first victims started arriving at 4pm by boat,” he said.

Whakatane Volunteer Fire Brigade chief Ken Clark, and his charges, were at the docks as extra hands.

“I don’t think people realised how bad people were,” he said.

“The severity of those burns. When you saw it you just go holy s**t. In 49 years as a firefighter, I had never seen anything like it.”

Ellis continued to ferry patients into burn units, metro hospitals and anywhere that had space as news there were no more survivors on the island filtered to McGregor.

He called it.

It was now a recovery mission.

Navy arrives and recovery launched

HMNZS Wellington captain Tim Hall deployed to Whakaari to assist. The ship’s specialist equipment and radar would be useful in the coming days.

Scientific experts joined with a special planning team to come up with a safe recovery.

Hall remembers the collaboration between all agencies as being key to the mission’s success.

“Reading the plan I was impressed at how good it was,” he said.

“There were clear go or no go items. All of them had to be met and then reported back to the command elements on shore before the green light was given.”

It was outside the usual health and safety realm. Chief of the Defence Force, Air Marshal Kevin Short had to sign a waiver to bypass the Health and Safety Act given the danger on the December 13 mission.

“Everything was surreal about that day,” Hall said.

“Even the weather. It was so still. The ash from the volcano was hanging around differently than it was before.”

Hall said the training shone through during the mission.

“There was lot of adapt and overcome thinking occurring on the ground,” he said.

“We would receive (information) from the ground team that they have encountered issues and here was what they planned to do about it.”

A wave of relief washed over the crew when the mission was completed.

“There was this releasing of the weight of what they had just done,” he said.

“We now had to give them [victims] back to the family.”

However, two bodies were unaccounted for having been washed into the sea by a deluge before the mission could launch.

McGregor sent in the dive team to search for tourist Winona Langford and White Island Tour Guide Hayden Marshall-Inman’s body.

Kaitiaki of Whakaari

Hayden’s brother was working at the Top 10 Holiday park when he heard news the volcano had erupted on December 9, 2019.

“I just remember saying that everything will be all right as Hayden was out there,” Mark Inman said.

“It took us a little to find out [he was unaccounted for]. It was supposed to be his day off.”

Divers spotted a body in the water. It was believed to be Hayden’s but it was lost in the transfer between Navy and Police and sank below the surface.

“They [the divers] were very upset,” McGregor said. “They wanted the best for them.”

Twelve months on and Inman is holistic in the fact his brother was never recovered.

“We never really got closure without a body,” he said. “Deep down, you know that that’s where Hayden wanted to be while Winona was still out there. He would not have wanted to leave her alone. It’s bittersweet but it's nice there’s someone else out there.”

Twelve months on

With a coroner’s inquest underway there is still much the rescue teams cannot speak of as the investigation continues.

McGregor says the biggest regret of his time in command at Whakaari was not being able to return Winona and Hayden to their families.

Ellis says he is satisfied with the efforts St John put into the rescue and recovery efforts on an unprecedented event and how the emergency services worked together.

Hall said the mission was a reminder to trust the training. “We do a good job at things. You don’t have to worry that you’re not good enough simply because people are paying attention. Back yourself. There’s a reason you are there.”

Locally the eruption and rescue took its toll. Clark says there is a reluctance to talk about that day in town.

“Sometimes I think the less I hear about it the better I’ll be,” he said.

Law’s business was decimated the day of the eruption as he had “all his eggs in one basket” like many tour operators flying to Whakaari did.

“Eighty per cent of my business went overnight.”

As one of the few people who landed on the island that day, Law is often contacted by people who lost family in the eruption, now looking for closure.

“I was on the ground,” he said. “I flew in, landed and went and seen the state of everyone.”

He says people have questions. Normal questions about their loved ones he saw on the day. Occasionally these requests are facilitated from overseas media writing about the event.

“They want to know how they were,” he said. “Were their faces okay. I’ve always got time to answer questions from families.'