NZ volcano tragedy: covered in ash, this was horrific, say responders

When intensive-care paramedic Russell Clark landed on White ­Island after the volcanic eruption, he likened the scene to Chernobyl.

Paul Kingi on White Island with a young tourist.

When intensive-care paramedic Russell Clark landed on White ­Island after the volcanic eruption, he said the scene looked like the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

“It was quite an overwhelming feeling,” he said. “It was like, I have seen the Chernobyl miniseries, and everything was just blanketed in ash.”

The Auckland Westpac Rescue helicopter team put aside the shock to try to find survivors.

“There was a helicopter on the island that had obviously been there at the time, with its rotor blades off it,’’ Mr Clark said.

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“I can only imagine what it was like for the people there at the time — they had nowhere to go. It would’ve been quite traumatic for them.”

“We didn’t find any survivors on the island,” Mr Clark added, but a crew they dropped off did find some patients.

Tales of heroism and compassion have emerged from the tragedy, with rescuers ignoring the threat of a second eruption to return to look for ­survivors.

Local boat skipper Paul Kingi had left the active volcano minutes before it erupted but came back to get people on to his boat.

“He was the first back on, rescuing and assisting numerous ­injured back on to the waiting boats,” his former boss, Rick Pollock of Pursuit Fishing Charters, said on Facebook.

“He went back again and again, ignoring the toxic environment and personal risk, until he was satisfied there were no more obvious survivors remaining.

Local Geoff Hopkins had been given a trip to White Island by his daughter Lilliani and they were ­returning to the mainland when the volcano erupted.

The boat the pair were on launched a dinghy to pick up tourists who had run to the water for safety. “They were horrifically burnt,” Mr Hopkins said. “People were in shorts and T-shirts, so there was a lot of exposed skin that was massively burnt.

“Their faces were massively burnt but there were also huge burns under people’s clothes. Their clothes looked fine, but when you cut them off … I’ve never seen blisters like that.”

Both Mr Hopkins and his daughter are trained in first-aid and offered to help, alongside two tourists, from England and Slovenia.

Mr Hopkins, a pastor, tried to reassure the patients they were OK as they drifted in and out of consciousness, screaming and going into shock as water was poured on their burns.

“My fear now is that they didn’t make it. There were five critical people on our boat and there’s been five fatalities confirmed … they were just so badly burnt,” he said.

The deputy chief of the local voluntary fire brigade, Malcolm Rowson, said the burns were the worst he had ever seen.

“I have been doing this job for 40 years and I have never seen anything as bad as that,” he said.

“They were totally covered in grey soot and underneath were these horrible burns.”

Mr Rowson said victims would have “had ­nowhere to go”.

“From the outset, the sheer scale of it is enormous and the amount of families and victims that are involved is huge — we’re talking potentially a lot of people involved,” he said. “I feel for their families … there’s going to be a huge healing process and it’s going to be a long time and a lot of work to be done.”

Senior pilot James Tayler, who flew 13 units of blood to Whakatane and took a badly injured female patient to Waikato Hospital, said he wasn’t a hero.

“We’re just doing our jobs,” he said.

“We all do the job. It’s difficult to think of yourself as a hero when you do something that you enjoy doing.”

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who paid tribute to the emergency services workers on Monday, met some of the first responders, singling out the courage of the helicopter pilots who helped with the rescue effort.

“I suspect their own personal safety was the last thing on their minds,” she said.