Man’s late rescue spurs searchers

Press, 23 October 1989, Page 1

Man’s late rescue spurs searchers

NZPA-Reuter San Francisco The rescue of a man trapped in his crushed car for four days following the earthquake that struck the San Francisco area injected ' new hope into the search for survivors yesterday. Mr Buck Helm, aged 57, was pulled from the wreckage of his car yesterday after a rescuer spotted him moving a hand. The car had been smashed nearly flat on Tuesday when the quake brought down a 2km stretch of the top deck of elevated two-tier Interstate highway SBO in Oakland, across San Francisco Bay. “Nobody is going to be leaving here tonight,” said a rescue worker, Mr Jeff Breckenridge, who was credited with spotting Mr Helm.

In spite of unstable conditions, rescue workers now say they will redouble their efforts to make sure all survivors have been found. About 1000 workers are at the site.

“Thank God I’m alive,” Mr Helm told Mr Breckenridge when he found him.

He even managed, to wave to a cheering crowd as he was carefully placed in an ambulance. His wife, Lorene, said “I raised my hands and said, ‘Thank God’,” when she heard the news.

Mr Helm was reported to be bruised but conscious and alert in hospital. Doctors* said he had

suffered a slight skull fracture and damage to a leg, while his kidneys were not functioning properly because of dehydration. He had lain prone on the front seat of his car, pinned by a leg.

"This is an amazing thing,” said Dr Monica Rosenthal, who examined Mr Helm moments after he was rescued. “He was cold to the touch, but he had no broken bones and no amputation was required to free him from the wreckage.” “It is a thrill to know somebody’s going to survive from this horrible thing,” said Mr Alfred Anderson, a rescuer who had spent 28 hours at the site without rest. “We had no hopes for anybody, seeing the things we’ve seen around us there.” According to the latest official count 34 people were killed in the highway collapse, while 11 were killed elsewhere by the quake. Initially, officials estimated that as many as 270 had died, with as many as 250 at the highway site alone. No-one had been found alive in the debris of the two-tier highway since late Tuesday when doctors were forced 'to amputate below the knee a leg of a boy, aged 7, to free him. The boy’s sister was also rescued but their parents were killed as they drove along the

highway when the earthquake, measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale, struck. After days of depressing news about his city, the Mayor of Oakland, Mr Lionel Wilson, said after Mr Helm’s rescue: “It was just an incredible, wonderful sight when he waved his arms when he was brought out.” Mr Helm’s survival was one of the few bright notes in what had been a four-day ordeal for millions of Californians whose lives were altered by the quake, the deadliest in the United States since the San Francisco quake of 1906 in which 452 people were killed. Fires caused by the quake virtually destroyed the city then. The quake’s damage has been estimated at $l7 billion, and at least 8000 people have either lost their homes or been forced out of them temporarily. At least 3000 injuries were reported. After several days of unseasonably warm and sunny weather, a cold rain storm began moving across the region from the Pacific Ocean, adding to the miseries of people living outdoors in makeshift camps and in vehicles. The U.S. Geological Survey reported that more than 1400 aftershocks have been recorded since the quake and warned residents that more aftershocks were expected. Picture, page 8