‘Volatile, hot, dangerous – yeah, it was all that and more’
He was known only as ‘Serviceman M’ when he was decorated for his work leading the ground recovery team after the Whakaari/ White Island eruption.
Now, the ‘‘mystery’’ hero who, along with his team, risked his life to retrieve six bodies from the still volatile island, can be named.
Matt Carey led a team of eight to Whakaari days after the December 9, 2019, eruption – which killed 22 people and injured another 25 – to bring back the bodies of the dead who lay among the ash and volcanic debris.
At the time Carey was an army captain in the Defence Force where he had spent 15 of his 17 years of service in the bomb disposal unit. A risky business, to be sure. Heading towards an active volcano was uncharted and dangerous territory.
Carey, of Silverstream, won’t be labelled a hero, despite leading the heroic effort.
It was all in the line of duty, for which he was recognised in the 2021 Queen’s Birthday Honours with a Distinguished Service Decoration.
That day is firmly etched in his memory, though. Volatile, hot, dangerous – yeah, he says, it was all that and more. He says he didn’t tell the team till afterwards how high the chance of another eruption and death were during the recovery.
He had never been to Whakaari, though his family has a connection with the area – his wife, Karla (Ngāi Awa, Tūhoe), was born in Whakatāne. Approaching the island from
HMNZS Wellington was a daunting moment.
‘‘When we got on to the island we could hear noises all the time. When we stopped, the ground was moving. When we got close enough we could see the odd thing spurting out of the crater lake. We just carried on.’’
For Carey, the words from up high in the Ministry of Defence rang loud and clear in his ears: ‘‘The whole world is watching’’.
But there was no time to feel the pressure. They had three hours to get in and get out. On the face of it the task was simple, he says: get to the island, find the people, recover them appropriately, and get out of there. It was the hostile and dangerous environment that made it difficult.
The team was kitted out in full protective gear to guard against extreme heat and lethal gases, along with breathing apparatus. ‘‘The ash was really thick, up to knee height. It was like walking through mud. The heat was extreme ... It was boiling. The team got fatigued pretty quickly. Imagine holding something with an oven mitt – it is really hot, but you are not actually burning.
‘‘That was what it was like wading along the muddy stream looking for bodies.’’
During his 17 years in the army he was deployed to Lebanon where he cleared cluster munitions in 2007 after the war between Israel and Hezbollah. In 2012/13 he went to Afghanistan where he worked in bomb disposal.
Carey, 35, left NZDF last year to take up a job as lead adviser in response management at Taumata Arowai, the water services regulator for Aotearoa.