CATASTROPHE ISMYDAILYJOB

FIREFIGHTER RECALLS

NOON on April 25, 2015, is a moment seared into the minds of dozens of Scots tourists looking for adventure in Nepal.

That was when a huge earthquake brought horror to the Himalayas, killing nearly 9000 people and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless.

The 7.8-magnitude quake, which struck on a sunny Sunday, toppled a million houses, wrecked roads and cut off hundreds of small mountain villages.

Relatives of tourists caught up in the disaster battled frantically to find out the fate of their loved ones on the other side of the world.

But for Perth fireman Danny Gall, it was business as usual – because as one of the world’s leading urban search and rescue specialists, catastrophe is part of his daily job.

The 47-year-old has helped out after some of the world’s worst disasters and didn’t hesitate when he got the call along with a handful of other Scots emergency workers.

He grabbed his permanently packed rucksack and passport and headed to the airport, unsure of the devastation he was to find thousands of miles away.

Danny said: “What the victims of these disasters don’t have is time, so we have to react as quickly and safely as possible when the host country put out a distress call.

“We are at a constant state of readiness so our government can fly us into an area at very short notice. Once there, we try to hook up with the British embassy staff or military and wait to be tasked.

“Our group is completely self-sufficient for a fortnight – we have our own doctors, showers, food and water – and we take state-of-the-art rescue equipment and a search dog so we can get a lot done.”

The UK’s 70-man crew flew into tiny Kathmandu airport and set up base at the British embassy.

Danny teamed up with a unit of Ghurkas and was quickly set to work making the city’s hospital safe.

He said: “Our first job was to secure

If we can go through our careers saving just one life then we’ve done our job DANNY GALL