快猫短视频

Working in the immediate aftermath of a disaster can be traumatising. Who volunteers for such work? We talked to three professionals who experienced close-up some of the most catastrophic events of recent years: Chris Sanford, a doctor who was rushed to New Orleans after hurricane Katrina; Robert Shaler, a forensics expert responsible for identifying victims of the 9/11 attack on New York; and Bretwood Higman, a geologist who witnessed the destruction wrought by the Asian tsunami. How did they manage to work amid so much suffering?

The doctor: Chris Sanford

Chris Sanford is a doctor at the University of Washington Travel Clinic in Seattle. He volunteered to help in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina struck last year. Drafted into one of the 60 or so disaster medical assistance teams, he was sent to New Orleans鈥檚 airport, which was being used as an emergency medical centre for thousands of people stranded by the flooding, many of them desperately ill. Interview by Andy Coghlan

Describe the scene that confronted you when you arrived at New Orleans airport.

The airport had become the city鈥檚 main makeshift medical centre designated to treat patients evacuated from the hospitals that had flooded. It also had evacuees from convalescent homes and nursing homes, people who had been rescued from rooftops, and many more who鈥檇 made their way there independently. There was row after row of motionless people on the floor. It was the worst thing I鈥檇 ever seen in my life. We had too few staff to give them water, let alone treatment. It exceeded everything we imagined. For 30 minutes or so, most of us were too upset to do anything, and many of us were in tears.

We were grossly understaffed: there were thousands of people needing treatment but only a few of us. Most people were sick from the very abrupt withdrawal of their medicine, rather than injured by the hurricane itself. Many of the elderly incontinent hadn鈥檛 had diapers changed, and the temperature was 38 掳C, so it stank. There鈥檇 been no electricity either, and so no air conditioning. There was no drinkable tap water, and many survivors had been stewing in what was essentially diluted sewage. There were around 500 people on the floor, and about 2000 milling around.

How did you set about tackling these problems?

A system of tents had already been set up as part of a triage system run by nurses to prioritise the care of a long line of people awaiting treatment. The tents had different colours, according to severity of need, ranging from green for minor problems such as asthma, through yellow and red to black, which was essentially a hospice for people likely to die despite medical care. I was in the yellow tent treating intermediate cases like chest pain and diabetes. On the first day we ran out of everything, from oxygen to diapers and antibiotics. We didn鈥檛 have enough staff. And because of the lack of water it was difficult to wash hands between patients.

Yet somehow you coped.

We were overwhelmed for the first three days. On the fourth day, more medical teams arrived, just as the number of patients coming in started to decline. At the height of the chaos, there were probably 5000 or 6000 people in the airport. We sent over 3000 to hospitals by air, the biggest airlift ever from a disaster zone, and sent 25,000 to shelters. Scores were leaving the airport every hour aboard helicopters. Things got better once the military was fully mobilised.

Did many people die at the airport?

We had 36 deaths, mostly in the first three days. People died of heart attacks and strokes. That many people dying that quickly is unacceptable. I worked out the crude mortality rate, a figure used to calculate the number of daily deaths per 10,000 people in refugee camps. Normally it would be about 0.4 to 0.6. A CMR greater than 1 is considered 鈥渆levated鈥� and a CMR exceeding 2 is critical. At the airport it appears to have exceeded 2. I鈥檓 proud to be American, but this certainly was not our finest hour. There were failures at local and state levels, but the biggest failure was at federal level. They were the only people with the muscle to respond, yet they waited to be invited. The government should have been there sooner.

How has the experience affected you?

I used to have more faith in the federal government and more faith in the media to pinpoint where things didn鈥檛 work. But the media has been too lenient and didn鈥檛 catch on to how poor things were at the airport. It鈥檚 bad enough that it happened once; if we don鈥檛 make a stink about it it鈥檚 going to happen again.

The forensics expert: Robert Shaler

Robert Shaler was director of the DNA laboratory of New York鈥檚 Office of Chief Medical Examiner when the World Trade Center towers collapsed, killing thousands. It was Shaler鈥檚 job to work out who the victims were. He is now professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Pennsylvania State University. Interview by Alison Motluk

What was going through your mind when reports of the attacks began to come through?

We first heard that it was a small plane that hit the building. Then we heard that a big plane had hit and that there was a fire, so we knew there would be bodies. When the buildings fell, some estimates said 20,000 bodies. We had no information except what was coming through on the radio.

How did you prepare for identifying the victims from the Twin Towers?

The laboratory had to be completely reorganised. I had to make sure that we were ready to bring in the DNA samples and store them. That first day we made 3000 manila folders with case numbers on them so we鈥檇 have places to put the paperwork. Six separate laboratories worked on analysing the DNA samples, then the data were sent back to the DNA lab to make the identification.

A major problem was that we didn鈥檛 know how many people had been killed. The other problem was the inflated numbers of missing: many people were reporting the same individuals missing. The DNA from the bodies that were brought in initially was in pretty good shape, but as time went on it got worse.

What kind of contact did you have with the families of the missing?

We met them every week. We started giving weekly tours through the laboratory to family members so they could understand what the DNA process was. It dawned on me as I was talking to a family member that if I were to come to her and say: 鈥淲e made an identification on your husband using DNA,鈥� it would be a mystery to her. I thought it would be good to take her through the laboratory. After that, I had groups of families coming through every week for a couple of years.

Did you personally contact families once you had identified someone?

I only had to do that once. It was difficult because we needed DNA from the daughter to confirm the identification. So I called the victim鈥檚 husband and explained who I was. I said: 鈥淚 think we鈥檝e found your wife.鈥� I explained that there was no way we could make the identification without his daughter鈥檚 DNA. He said she was still pretty devastated and he didn鈥檛 want to approach her about it. The next day he called me. He was going to take his daughter鈥檚 toothbrush and give it to us. Within a week, we got the match. I called him and said: 鈥淚 really appreciate your helping us. We鈥檝e identified your wife.鈥�

How did he react?

He just said: 鈥淭hank you very much.鈥� That was the end of the conversation. Earlier he鈥檇 said: 鈥淚 know you鈥檙e just doing your job.鈥� I wanted to say, it鈥檚 more than just a job, it鈥檚 an obsession.

How does it help the victims鈥� families if it鈥檚 already clear that they died there?

It鈥檚 like anyone who has a family member missing: you want them back, because they belong with the family. You cannot imagine how devastating it is for people not to have these remains. The people whose loved ones could not be identified 鈥� they were like lost souls.

The geologist: Bretwood Higman

Bretwood Higman is a graduate student at the University of Washington, Seattle, specialising in tsunamis and earthquakes. In January 2005, immediately after the Asian tsunami, he spent several weeks on the coasts of Sri Lanka and Indonesia examining the deposits it had left behind. His goal was to compare them with traces from ancient tsunamis, and understand better how earthquakes can lead to such catastrophic loss of life. Interview by Richard Lovett

What鈥檚 a geologist doing studying a disaster?

There are two motivations. One is to save lives by influencing disaster planning and education. But these events also have fascinating impacts on the landscape. I grew up in a small Alaskan town with ghost forests of trees killed by subsidence in Alaska鈥檚 1964 earthquake. So catastrophic events are something I鈥檝e always been interested in. To understand ancient tsunami deposits, and the earthquakes that caused them, you have to go somewhere where you know what happened. If I can establish how deposits form, it can help us determine the types of earthquakes that produce them and the risks they pose.

You arrived very soon after the tsunami struck. What was it like?

There was almost no time to process what I was seeing. We had five days to cover hundreds of kilometres of coast. I was amazed by the degree to which the Sri Lankans had recovered, only two weeks after the event. Our first hotel was already redoing its landscaping. At first glance it looked normal. Then we realised that all the windows were gone, and we saw the damage on the beach.

Indonesia was different. Several months after the disaster it was still a scene of total devastation. This is partly because the tsunami was bigger there, but it was also because of the terrain. Indonesia has a narrow coastal plain, backed by mountain jungles. All of the infrastructure had been on the plain, where everything was pretty much destroyed.

What was the impact in rural areas?

The outer coast of Aceh had horrendous destruction. The waves came in at a height of 15 to 20 metres and stripped almost every structure off its foundations. All of the vegetation was removed, so there was what geologists call a 鈥渢rim line鈥�, below which there was nothing but a few large tree trunks. In places, the trim line was 35 metres up the hillside.

How did you feel about doing science when all around you people were suffering?

There is definitely something of a moral conundrum. We started work in Indonesia immediately after the 28 March earthquake, which would have been the biggest in 40 years were it not for the one on 26 December that caused the tsunami. Four days afterwards, we visited some islands that were pretty heavily affected. One had been uplifted by nearly 2 metres, which meant that all its wells were dry. Because of aftershocks, people were afraid to go into them to dig deeper, and there wasn鈥檛 enough fuel for boats to go to another island for water.

We were there to do science, but you feel like you鈥檙e taking advantage of what鈥檚 happened to these people to make yourselves safer, halfway around the world. I do believe that what I do contributes to the good of the world, but sometimes it feels that two hands that could row a boat to bring them water would be more valuable in the short run. We did leave fuel and water.