Honours for CTV heroes after quake
Crawling through smoke-filled tunnels to help people trapped in Christchurch’s collapsed CTV building was the ‘‘most harrowing day’’ for three Canterbury medical professionals.
Dr David Richards remembers hoping his wife didn’t find out where he was as he tried to reach a group of students caught inside the rubble on the day of the February 22, 2011, earthquake.
St John paramedic James Watkins has experienced nightmares in the years following, as he relives having to drag firefighters working in the tunnels out by their ankles whenever significant aftershocks struck.
Kaikoura GP Chris Henry was also there, helping assess whether people were dead or alive as they were pulled from the debris.
The three men’s actions have now been recognised with New Zealand Bravery Medals.
Richards said crawling through the collapsed building ‘‘probably wasn’t the most sensible thing’’ to do, but there were people trapped inside who needed help.
‘‘I was there and probably the best person to be able to provide that medical assistance to them and so I thought it was my duty to go and do that.’’
It all happened amid dense smoke and the constant threat of aftershocks.
The earthquake killed 185 people in total, including 115 at the CTV building.
Richards remembers most of that day, but conceded there were parts he preferred not to.
‘‘It’s something you train and prepare for, so when it happens, you know, you sort of go into an automatic mode and hopefully you perform your duties adequately,’’ he said.
Watkins worked with the Fire Service to dig through wreckage and search for survivors during the aftermath of the earthquake.
‘‘It was automatic mode, everybody just went into overdrive.’’
He also made trips in and out of the tunnel to assist Richards, who was running IV lines to the survivors, and to pass medication to the doctor to give to those who were trapped.
‘‘I’m not ashamed to admit it, but I’ve dealt with it and then with this award . . . it sort of brought it all home again,’’ Watkins said. ‘‘I’m in a much better place now. I think there’s a lot of people, emergency service staff and that there that would’ve had the same . . . nightmares and restless sleep.’’
Henry initially helped create a makeshift morgue in Latimer Square, before he joined rescuers halfway up the crumpled CTV building to help pull people out of the rubble.
‘‘I had to assess whether they were alive or dead. It’s one of the things that has troubled me. You couldn’t see what colour they were, everything was shaking, the only pulse I could hear was mine. ‘‘That has really stuck in my mind.’’
While many cases ended tragically, some people were pulled out alive.
One foreign language student had been trapped under the rubble and beneath a body, with only the soles of his shoes visible.
‘‘He’d been lying there for hours like that, but when we got him out he just stood up, dusted himself off, shook hands with everybody there and basically walked off.’’
Henry recalls an intense camaraderie between fellow rescuers, who were all totally reliant on one another, though he never knew their names.
‘‘Reflecting on it, it’s the most harrowing day of your life and then you all just get on with it.’’
All three men said they were honoured and humbled to be recognised with bravery medals, but all three insisted the job was a team effort.
‘‘We just look at it [as] we’re doing our job,’’ Watkins said.
Police investigating the fatal CTV building collapse will dig trenches to examine the site’s soil and foundations.