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Four members of Joburg's emergency management services were in Haiti to help search and rescue operations. It was like being in a Vietnam war film, they say.
THEY had one hour's notice: "Pack and get to the airport. Bring your full kit," was the command. Their response was sure, quick. "Count us in," they said.
EMS's Leon Wiering on the ground in Haiti
On 15 January they took to the air from Waterkloof Airforce Base in Tshwane. On board were 32 of their colleagues from across South Africa, taking their accumulated medical and search and rescue skills to assist in the human tragedy of what surely tarnished the start of a promising new year, the earthquake on 12 January in Haiti.
Much like an earthquake, words like magnitude, immense, tragedy break to the surface. It is inevitable for people to be almost devoid of vocabulary to describe what they have experienced, but the deputy director for operations at the Johannesburg emergency management services (EMS), Rapulane Morageng admits that talking about it helps him to deal with his recent experiences in Port au Prince. He speaks fast, every word hitting to the core. There is a lot that needs to come out.
"You might think you have resources, but you have nothing," he says, relating the feeling of powerlessness and devastation which first met them in the Haitian capital.
Sitting next to him is Leon Wiering, one of the four men from Joburg's EMS to join forces with the South African Rescue Association, the select group of professionals sent by South Africa. The others were Conner Hardnady, an advanced life support paramedic based at Sandton, and Lucas Kekana, an instructor at the EMS's Rietfontein training academy.
With an open shyness, Wiering relates what he saw. "We were not sure what to expect. We did not think it was as big, till we got there," he smiles crookedly, a bit unsure how to deal with his status as international rescuer.
The day before, he was knee-deep in flood water, searching for two bodies in rain-drenched Johannesburg. In 2009, he was one of the key people in the successful rescue of two young men trapped inside an underground pipe in Cosmo City. Ten years of rescue work has chiseled Wiering into a steadfast yet unassuming firefighter of world-class calibre.
Working in difficult conditions, the South African squad brought tenacity and passion
You want him in your team, indicates Morageng, his off-hand remark saying more than a thousand lavish praises.
Tenacity
It is exactly this South African tenacity and passion which were talked about on that far-off island, with the English team at one point calling on their expertise, "because we can see you guys know what you are doing", relates a chuckling Morageng.
With about 120 different countries sending rescue teams from around the world, it was a United Nations effort of enormous proportions, yet even at this time, world politics was showing its ugly, yet manicured hand in the order of things.
Morageng admits that he was "cheesed off" a couple of times.
For one thing, the Americans were quick to take control of airspace, which resulted in many foreign rescue teams being stranded at the airport in Los Americas, frustratingly pacing the tarmac as sand trickled out of the "golden hour period" of the life-support hourglass. Turns out one had to have a special "slot", which could only be issued from some unknown person based somewhere in New York City.
After a day of waiting, Team SA finally managed to find an aeroplane departure "slot", only to be told that it did not display the "proper UN number". It was back to pacing the tarmac for the South Africans, but not without approaching every single pilot and plane in sight at the same time, Wiering remembers. It paid off, and not long after they took to the air, this time for the final destination, Port au Prince.
It was either that or opting for an eight-hour road trip to Haiti, says Morageng, an option which was simply untenable under the circumstances. The flight took just 20 minutes.
Markings indicate that the buildings have been searched
Likewise, one French rescue group, tired and frustrated, took to the road - on foot. Lugging all their equipment on their backs, the Frenchmen hiked the last five kilometres into the capital and told the South African team that they would probably need a day to recover. The next day, though they were ready to go on duty.
Positive
"Every day you feel positive to find live people," Morageng relates, thinking back to the spirit of the rescue community. One of the first things Team SA installed in its campsite was a custom-made shower and a miniature long-drop - nothing like a bit of luxury to smooth over the rough edges.
Lighter moments may have been few considering the task at hand, but showed themselves in the spontaneous singing of Shosholoza as they walked out of camp; and one day the "cooking team" announced a special treat for the returning rescue group. Yes, indeed, on the menu was a starter course, they were told, and were promptly served with delectable deep-fried bully beef. Everybody had to take turns to stay in camp for this mundane, yet important job, Morageng laughs.
Yet, he could also see the spirit slowly seeping out of the group, he admits. Outside their barricaded homebase, crowds of hungry, thirsty inhabitants were waiting to beseech, to plead, to question - mostly for water, but also because they had heard someone crying from underneath a pile of rubble. They were not violent, "but you could see their suppression, their depression, their desperation".
Hearing was stretched to the limit by the incessant honk of hooting cars, machines drilling and pounding, trucks clearing away rubble, planes landing, and at night, a special treat - the "tweep tweep" of a forklift in reverse, off-loading another consignment of provisions at the airport nearby - much like "a construction site", says Wiering smiling faintly.
Life goes on in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake
How can you hear the faint tap of a weakened human in this din, Morageng remembers thinking to himself. Luck, it seems, had to be on your side. Like the UN envoy who was found purely because the rescue team had run out of petrol for their special rescue equipment, and in the relative quiet, someone was heard tapping.
Grey dust hung like an unwashed bridal veil over the whole town, causing irritation and respiratory problems, while the pungent, protruding smell of rotting flesh announced itself in advance - and not a waft of a breeze to relieve the stifling 40 degree heat.
Communication
And with only French and Creole spoken in Haiti, communication became a hit and miss affair of body moves and sign language. Even fellow rescue teams from countries such as Portugal, Switzerland, Poland, Germany, Russia and others had to be satisfied with a skimpy verbal diet of "hello, good morning" and a friendly wave - "it was all we had, but it was sufficient", smiles Morageng.
Yet, everyone wants to stop you; talk to you; tell you about a possible "live person". "At some point you have to say, ‘Listen, we are sticking to the area we were assigned to, to search,'" says Wiering, who, with fellow South Africans were tasked to assist the United Nations in its efforts.
Simple, everyday things became a long logistical nightmare, with rescue teams all jostling for available transport, fuel for equipment and other necessities, often on the thriving black market. One particular day must have been a bumper one for garages, says Wiering, when the price of fuel rose to an unheard of $29 for one gallon - about R219 for 3,8 litres, or R57 a litre.
Crawling rodent-like through dark alleys of debris - once a church where strangely, a peaceful Jesus draped in sky-blue cloth hangs unscathed from its cross; a school where children sat down to write exams on the day of the earthquake; a house where the grey body of a woman is marked by a red arrow, indicating that a rescue team has been there before, her blue Alice band still determinedly announcing her recent femininity to the world. These were just some of the scenes that greeted the team.
Rescue teams had to mark the buildings they had searched with spray paint, indicating the date and time of the search, where bodies were located, how many were found dead, and survivors, if any.
Last to leave
Yes, if it was up to him, he and his colleagues would still be out there, admits Morageng. "I would not have called it off. Search and rescue teams should be the last people to leave," he believes. "I am not a negative person. You have to stay hopeful. How can I tell the world there is no hope [for Haiti]."
By the time Team SA left Haiti on 21 January, the search for live survivors had been called off. Yet Morageng has a point: eight days after their arrival back in South Africa, another person was found alive in the rubble - this time a girl of 15 who had waited more than two weeks to be rescued.
"You cannot simulate [what is happening] in Haiti to people. I was five days in Haiti but I can talk for a whole year about it [the experience]," he says.
"It felt like we were in those old Vietnam movies," Wiering sums it up.
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