‘We wrapped her in Gladwrap’
The medic examined his patient and sent a staffer to the shops to buy more cling wrap.
The patient was in a bad way and a long way from home. Her skin was ‘‘blasted off’’, blistered, and raw. To survive her injuries she was going to need a catering pack of cling wrap to seal her burns like boilerplate.
Within an hour of the volcano erupting, Whakata¯ ne Hospital was overrun with burns victims. Screams echoed in the corridors and the bodies kept piling in. It was complete bedlam, a hospital staffer said.
About 30 victims from Monday’s Whakaari/White Island eruption were treated at the small, coastal hospital.
The medical professional, who has asked for his identity to be hidden, is struggling to deal with the aftermath.
‘‘There was lots of noise, lots of screaming. The smell of sulphur and burnt flesh was horrific and just the pandemonium going on.’’
Physiotherapists, and even hospital office workers, were called to help. They had to hold oxygen bags, or wrap limbs in cling wrap, a sign of how massive the task was.
‘‘Every booth was busy, and every booth you looked into the patients had massive burns. They were covered in ash and screaming in pain.’’
The hospital worker helped to stabilise a patient who had extensive burns to the front of her body. Staff struggled to monitor her vital signs as there was no skin to attach the sensors to.
‘‘But we got a tube in and we were ventilating her, looking at her colour as much as we could and she seemed quite stable.’’
One staff member was sent to buy as much cling wrap as possible, while another was tasked to remove jewellery.
Bolt cutters were deployed to remove watches and rings before limbs and fingers swelled.
‘‘They wanted our spot desperately for another urgent patient, but we couldn’t go until we wrapped her.
‘‘Fluid was dripping out of her, so we wrapped and wrapped her in Gladwrap.
‘‘I was trying to roll her but I was too scared to touch her because every time I did, skin would come off in my hands.’’
Tearfully, the staffer spoke of the moment they found out his patient’s name. ‘‘We managed to call her by her name and say, ‘It’s gonna be all right.’ We did our best for her; we got her as comfy as we could and put a warming device on her before her transport to another hospital.’’
Every burns patient was initially identified by a number, reflecting the order in which they had arrived at hospital.
The international patient had a cellphone with her and it was ringing, but staff declined to answer it as they felt the language barrier may have made an already appalling situation worse. Not only that, they were unsure of what to say or tell the person on the other end of the phone, especially when the victim was in a critical condition.
He said the injuries were similar to those you would expect to see from hot steam or water. And for most patients, there were no signs of injuries from debris.
Three days after the eruption, the staffer has flashbacks, specifically of the six hours spent with the woman he helped to survive. After a 14-hour day he was sent home and other staff
covered his shift.
‘‘People have got to remember that we’re a small hospital, no-one was identified at the time, everyone was covered in ash, everything was happening at once. The focus was on saving lives. The identity was irrelevant at the time – we just wanted them to survive.
‘‘Identity is important for people but we just had to treat what we saw, and that was injuries and human beings.
‘‘We have never seen anything like that. We had a bus crash a few years ago and it was nothing like what we saw on Monday.’’
Tuesday was surreal for staff. There were about 150 who helped on Monday, and the next day was spent restocking shelves and cleaning up. There was so much ash in the air-conditioning that the system had to be removed and cleaned.
‘‘It’s traumatising for us getting them safe and stable, but it’s only a patch of what they’re going to experience in their lives,’’ the staffer said.
He didn’t know any of the victims personally but Hayden Marshall-Inman was his tour guide a few months back. ‘‘He was lovely and I hope his family get him back.’’
The staffer told his story to Stuff after being troubled by recent reports about accountability, and talk of ‘‘finding someone to blame’’.
‘‘I guess I’m biased because what I saw was the human element. I don’t care about the politics. I want to keep people safe in the future but initially we need to think of families and staff, and everyone that had to deal with it.’’