VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Sometimes nothing can prepare a person for what they are about to see and deal with in a disaster zone. The Vancouver Urban Search and Rescue Team hasn’t been deployed to Christchurch, New Zealand, but says the situation turns more desperate with each day that passes.
Once a call is confirmed, Wade Pierlot with Canada Task Force One says a deployment support team will be formed. “Once we get to the next phase, called ‘activation status,’ we call all the members in, they come in through a checkpoint [and go through] a medical exam. We make sure their passports are up to date… anything that we can give them, according to that country.”
Pierlot goes on to explain what they do when they arrive in the danger zone. “We pinpoint where survivors are and then that’s where we concentrate efforts so that we are not wasting our efforts recovering the deceased.”
He says critical incident stress debriefers are often available to rescuers. “I don’t think there’s any preparing you for blocks and blocks of mayhem, mothers crying for their sons and daughters… I don’t think there’s preparation for that.”
There are a lot of issues preventing their services from being required but Pierlot adds, “The guys live for this stuff. It’s very frustrating for us, but we understand why these things happen and why we don’t always get to where we want to go.”
