Whakaari/White Island: People 'were in real distress' says chopper pilot

Wednesday, 11 December 2019

A commercial chopper pilot who helped rescue 12 people from Whakaari/White Island says scenes on the island were 'horrific'.

Six people have died after Monday afternoon's eruption, and many of the 30 people injured have life-threatening burns and lung damage. Some are on ventilators and may need skin grafts.

Mark Law told The Guardian that his team 'found people dead, dying and alive but in various states of unconsciousness' during an hour on the ground after the eruption.

Law said he had not been flying on Monday but saw the plume of smoke and spoke to fellow tour operators before deciding to step in.

New Zealand first responders land on 'moon-like' ash after White Island eruption

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* Whakaari/White Island volcano eruption: Images from rescue helicopter crews**

He feared emergency services wouldn't make it to the island because of the risk. 'We just took care of our own business,' he told The Guardian.

Law piloted one Squirrel helicopter while his colleague Jason Hill flew the second with fellow pilot Tom Storey as a passenger.

Tourism operator White Island Flights captured these images of the White Island eruption.

'I descended down into the crater, down to 200ft,' Law said. 'We could see people very easily from the air. We both landed in the centre of the island where we felt it was OK.

'We were moving around tending to people who were in real distress. We wanted to reassure them.'

Storey told The Project that being on the island was like 'running through talcum powder'.

'Just a very white dust, hard to breathe, actually extremely hard to breathe – without a gas mask you were gasping for air.'

He recognised his friend, Hayden Marshall-Inman, who was 'in a pretty bad way'.

'I just pulled him out from where he was and made him as comfortable as I could,' Storey said.

Law and his colleagues removed 12 people into three choppers and flew them to the mainland for hospital treatment.

'We would have loved to have gone back but we were instructed not to go back out. It was pretty hard to take,' Law said.