St. John Men Deal With ‘Emergency’

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30712, 30 March 1965, Page 14

St. John Men Deal With ‘Emergency’

The earthquake caused havoc. Explosions put out lights, ruptured water mains, and caused fires. Bodies were flung in all directions. One youth was hurled under a small lean-to. A sheet of iron from the roof sliced down and amputated his left arm inches below the shoulder. Nearby, a building filled with acrid smoke from several small fires. A jet of water from a burst main spurted out the open door. The interior was a tangle of broken beams, overturned chairs and groaning and screaming victims. This was the picture that confronted 18 men from the Christchurch central adult division of the St. John Ambulance when they arrived at the Fendalton Hall in Clyde road last evening for a special exercise. The more than 40 victims of the “earthquake” were members of the ChristchurchFendalton cadet ambulance division, working under Cadet Superintendent R. Curragh, and when the simulated disaster occurred most of them were outside the hall, but a few were inside.

The arriving ambulance men, supposedly called in to deal with the emergency, had to fight their way into the building through acrid clouds

of smoke (provided mainly by fireworks), against a jet of water from the “burst main” (provided by a fire hose) and deal with many different injuries (of plastic, and arranged by Cadet Corps Officer P. Armstrong). Divisional Superintendent D. Mangles split the rescuers into two groups: one to deal with the inside casualties, and orie to locate and deal with the ouside victims. In slightly more than half an hour all the casualties had been found and treated, and were being “dispatched to hospital” at four-minute intervals. By the end of the exercise it appeared likely that only two of the casualties had “died.” The boy with the amputated arm had lain undiscovered in the semi-collapsed shed for about 15 minutes, and more than 20 minutes elapsed before another badly injured “victim,” blown into a comer by the explosions, was located.

Several injuries required the use of stretchers, and all wounds were bandaged by the rescuers. The special effects were most realistic. An added touch of realism was that none of the rescuers knew the terrain of the “disaster area” and this made the search for victims more difficult.