A Welsh firefighter deployed to Turkey to find missing casualties in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake that has wrecked much of the Hatay province said “nothing could have prepared” her for what she had faced.
Emma Atcherley, from Bedwas in Caerphilly borough, is one of 77 search and rescue specialists scrambled from 14 fire and rescue services across the UK a week ago to start operations at the town of Antakya within a critical 72-hour window - working day and night to rescue people from the rubble.
Emma, who just days ago was enjoying normal life working with South Wales Fire and Rescue Service as a crew manager at Cardiff Central Station, relived the horror of what she had seen, including bodies piled high after being bulldozed out of the rubble. “I don’t think I’ve cried yet but throughout the day you go to a work site and you are up and you are down. It’s a bit of a rollercoaster,” the wife and mother-of-two said.
“The worst moments have been seeing the deceased pulled out of the rubble. A lot of the local teams have been working with bulldozers and have been taking the deceased out of the rubble. Seeing them piled up on the side of the road and the grieving families - that’s difficult. It’s so sad.
“Outside of most collapsed buildings are relatives sat waiting. It’s quite hard to see that level of suffering. They want us to bring their loved ones out alive or dead. We are a live rescue team so we have had to explain we can’t do anything if we can’t find signs of life, which is really hard. Unfortunately, there are more of the low moments than the highs.” You can get more story updates straight to your inbox by subscribing to our newsletters here.
Emma, deployed to Turkey with UK-ISAR (the UK International Search and Rescue team) specialists through the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, shared the levels of “anxiety” and “intensity” which she said she could never have been ready for. “Turkey is my first deployment with UK-ISAR and no amount of training could ever prepare you for how tough life is on the ground. Anything we work on that is quite true to real life is made safe before we train on them, whereas here we were going into buildings that were not safe and making tunnels not really knowing when the next aftershock might happen. That level of anxiety you just can’t prepare for.
“Nor the level of intensity because you constantly feel like you are on a stopwatch and up against the clock. You’ve got such a limited window to make a difference and pull people out alive. The scale of the devastation has even shocked colleagues who have been on numerous deployments.”
Around 36,000 people are known to have died as a result of the earthquake. A firefighter for more than 18 years, Emma was part of the team on Saturday that rescued two survivors from a collapsed building which they were lying beneath for 120 hours. She also pulled a 90-year-old woman from the rubble in the previous week and another man the following day.
Explaining the relief when another casualty was rescued, she continued: “It is so good when you pull someone out. When you know that there is potentially life to save, you get your hopes up and you are desperate to help and get them out. When you realise it’s a genuine possibility it’s a really nice feeling. The reaction of families when we’ve saved lives has been really heartwarming, seeing their relief and knowing that we’ve changed someone’s life. Generations of families are going to be around now because of some of those rescues.”
Emma explained how two of the rescues involved a man and a woman trapped inside a collapsed stairwell and took the team up to 19 hours. “I was part of the first shift from 2pm until about 1.30am - we were there almost 12 hours before handing over to the other team. It was really difficult for the team to walk away knowing that you are probably not going to see those people come out.”
Emma shed light on the significant number of people involved to rescue just one person. “For people that see clips of our rescues, there is so much more to it. We have the support of our families, we have people making sure we get a hot shower when we get back to base, there’s a team making sure the communications are right so we get the right information, there are teams making sure we have the kit we need for a rescue.”
Emma is looking forward to an emotional reunion with husband Leon and daughters Florence, 10, and eight-year-old Martha. “They are moving to a recovery phase but until all the rubble’s gone you never give up hope that you might find somebody. I’m not sure how much my kids understand of what’s going on. I know that at school they watch Newsround, so they will have seen something. I also know that their teacher did a little talk on me being part of the UK Government’s response and what the team were doing.
"I know the kids are very proud of me, but they don’t like me leaving and they were not happy that I was going. Any time I’ve spoken to them it’s very much been, ‘When are you coming home?’ I’m sure there will be lots of screaming and tears if I manage to pick them up from school when I get back.”
Read next:
- British woman loses ten family members in Turkey earthquake
- DJ apologises for making sick jokes about Turkey live on air
- Aid flight leaves Heathrow for Turkey with £350,000 of supplies on board
- The Welsh Turkish community fundraising to help victims of the earthquake
Seek out jobs where you live:
