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November 05Welcome to the monthly newsletter from International Rescue Corps. This newsletter is designed to give you a brief look into our work and some of the activities we get up to. Welcome to Novembers edition of IRC’s newsletter designed to keep you up to date with the goings on within our rescue organisation. September and October have been particularly eventful with the sad loss of one of our members and a massive earthquake in Pakistan. The earthquake was by far one our most successful with the corps rescuing 3 young boys but this was overshadowed the sheer scale of the casualties and the deceased. In this edition:- One day in PakistanSheena McCabe is an operational member of the corps with a number of overseas missions under her belt. As one of the team members who went to the Pakistan earthquake she now shares her experience: - “Pakistan, for me, was not a mission where I rushed from one building search to the next instead it moved at a much slower pace because I was part of the Section responsible for looking after the equipment. This slower pace meant I was able to observe in one day
more of what was going on around me than I’d ever done on any previous missions.
What I did notice and will always remain with me was the plight of the people
who had But before you could begin to think about the horror a harsh winter would reap on these people you had to get your head around the bottleneck of hundreds and hundreds of casualties awaiting evacuation to Islamabad. Most, if not all of these people, had not seen a doctor since the quake so you are looking at 72 hours + without any treatment. They were carried down from the surrounding mountains to Mazaffarabad by their relatives; who had been travelling since the quake. Now I’ve got to say I have never seen so many people with such serious injuries and it was heart breaking to see them and to feel completely helpless. There was very little I could do other than help move them to waiting ambulances or give them some water. What really tugged at the heartstrings was seeing children in great pain. The suffering was more evident than I’d ever seen on my previous missions where I’d only seen a fraction of the suffering that gives you a false impression of how people are coping with the disaster. Hanging around airports waiting to load kit etc gave me the opportunity to speak with ‘the locals’. I had many conversations with airport workers who wanted to know where I was from and what I did in the team but it was the conversations I had with the helicopter pilots that will stay with me. They would chat about what they had seen out in Mazaffarabad and the problems of evacuating the casualties and how grateful they were for the search teams coming out to help as it meant that the ordinary people of Pakistan had not been forgotten. Then the conversation would turn to religion and the trouble the different religions had caused in the world and that the world could certainly learn a lot from what was happening now. As there were both Christians and Muslims working alongside each other for one purpose and one purpose alone and that was to save life. For me, the Corps motto has never meant as much as it did that day. What we do matters to the ordinary people of this world.” Ongoing fundraisingAs most of you know IRC had to leave over £10,000 worth of equipment behind in Pakistan knowing full well that it would certainly be needed out there. However these items have to be replaced so we are having a concerted effort to raise more funds. Some of our members are coming up with some strange ideas (see below) but we are still relying on doing lectures and talks for our regular income. In fact some members are now booking talks for 2007! If you would like to hear us talk about the corps and our experiences then please get in touch with myself (details below) and I will organise a speaker in your area! Some strange fundraising events.One of our members would like to fund raise for IRC and is thinking of a sponsored 24-hour underwater game playing session. This would involve a team of 12 divers spending 24 hours underwater in relays, each dive would be under the water for 1 hour at a time, 4 hours in total, playing a variety of games. This is scheduled for some time in the New Year – anyone interested in knowing more please contact me. Back to top of page.
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