Canadians Volunteer To Work Among Decomposing

[george]

Tireless hours in the fields of death

Canadians volunteer to work among decomposing corpses, GEOFFREY YORK reports

PHUKET, THAILAND -- Adrienne Foley volunteered to work with the decomposing bodies because she had a strong stomach and a determination to help. But after three days in the fields of death, she was no longer able to cope.

Ms. Foley, a 27-year-old from Windsor, Ont., who has been living in Thailand for the past four years, is one of many Canadians who have devoted long hours and days to disaster relief after the tsunamis.

Many have been working 12-hour days under gruelling conditions, often surrounded by corpses and the stench of death. They say they feel a sense of duty to the victims and the country they love.

Ms. Foley, who teaches English at a language school in Phuket, began her volunteer work last Thursday as part of a team of four foreigners, including another Canadian. At first, they visited hospitals to compile lists of the dead and injured.

But the next day, they were asked whether they could work among the hundreds of bodies stored at Buddhist temples around the devastated beach resort of Khao Lak.

"I knew I was physically capable of it, so why shouldn't I do it," she said. "It shouldn't be left just on the shoulders of the Thais. Why should they be left to clean everything up? "

Friday, she spent three hours carrying corpses of foreign tourists in body bags at one of the temples. The next day, she helped bring relief supplies to the local town, and then spent several hours putting blocks of ice around the bloated bodies at a temple. It was a desperate effort to slow the decomposing, to give forensic experts a better chance of gathering DNA samples and identifying the bodies.

Sunday, she spent most of the morning putting more ice around more bodies. But by 1:30 p.m., she finally had to quit.

She had been wearing a mask to protect herself from the stench. But over three days, she had been in close contact with hundreds of decaying bodies, and the mask was no longer helping.

Although she was able to cope with the sight of the disfigured corpses -- "they looked like something out of a horror movie," she said -- it was the smell that eventually overwhelmed her. More than a day after leaving the temples, she still cannot get rid of the stench.

"I couldn't deal with the smell any more," she said yesterday. "I was leaning down, bending right over the bodies, almost putting my hands on them because I had to look for places to put the ice. To avoid the smell, I was breathing through my mouth, faster and faster, and then I was hyperventilating. I realized I was going to faint."

Another Canadian volunteer was Quebecker Diane Therrien of Trois-Rivières, who has lived in Thailand for the past 15 years. As an unpaid warden for the Canadian embassy, she has devoted most of the past week to the relief effort. Last Monday, when telephones were scarcely functioning, she visited hospitals and hotels all over the Phuket region, searching for Canadians and finding dozens of survivors. Then she spent three days in the resort town of Krabi, where hundreds of bodies of tsunami victims had arrived from the devastated resorts of Phi Phi island.

Along with a Thai friend, she worked for 12 hours a day. They visited hospitals, police stations, immigration offices, the ferry port where the corpses were arriving and the Chinese temple where they were stored. They rented equipment and hotel rooms for emergency workers. They helped the survivors get on airplanes to leave the region. They gathered photos of the dead and searched carefully for a missing Canadian woman, Rubina Wong, hoping to identify her by her dragonfly and goldfish tattoos.

"I felt it was my duty," said Ms. Therrien, who is head librarian at an international school in Phuket.

"I knew the embassy was relying on us," she added. "We were their only antenna in Krabi. Lives of people were depending on us, and people in Canada were worried about their relatives. It was no time to be playing games."

Denis Comeau, the Canadian ambassador to Thailand, said the embassy has about 10 volunteers helping with the recovery effort in Phuket. Of those, Ms. Therrien is among a core group who have been working every day.

"They're our guardian angels," he said. "They've come in every day, asking us what they can do. They keep coming back, every day."

--theglobeandmail.com 2005-01-04

[mr_lob]

Tireless hours in the fields of death

Canadians volunteer to work among decomposing corpses, GEOFFREY YORK reports

PHUKET, THAILAND -- Adrienne Foley volunteered to work with the decomposing bodies because she had a strong stomach and a determination to help. But after three days in the fields of death, she was no longer able to cope.

Ms. Foley, a 27-year-old from Windsor, Ont., who has been living in Thailand for the past four years, is one of many Canadians who have devoted long hours and days to disaster relief after the tsunamis.

Many have been working 12-hour days under gruelling conditions, often surrounded by corpses and the stench of death. They say they feel a sense of duty to the victims and the country they love.

Ms. Foley, who teaches English at a language school in Phuket, began her volunteer work last Thursday as part of a team of four foreigners, including another Canadian. At first, they visited hospitals to compile lists of the dead and injured.

But the next day, they were asked whether they could work among the hundreds of bodies stored at Buddhist temples around the devastated beach resort of Khao Lak.

"I knew I was physically capable of it, so why shouldn't I do it," she said. "It shouldn't be left just on the shoulders of the Thais. Why should they be left to clean everything up? "

Friday, she spent three hours carrying corpses of foreign tourists in body bags at one of the temples. The next day, she helped bring relief supplies to the local town, and then spent several hours putting blocks of ice around the bloated bodies at a temple. It was a desperate effort to slow the decomposing, to give forensic experts a better chance of gathering DNA samples and identifying the bodies.

Sunday, she spent most of the morning putting more ice around more bodies. But by 1:30 p.m., she finally had to quit.

She had been wearing a mask to protect herself from the stench. But over three days, she had been in close contact with hundreds of decaying bodies, and the mask was no longer helping.

Although she was able to cope with the sight of the disfigured corpses -- "they looked like something out of a horror movie," she said -- it was the smell that eventually overwhelmed her. More than a day after leaving the temples, she still cannot get rid of the stench.

"I couldn't deal with the smell any more," she said yesterday. "I was leaning down, bending right over the bodies, almost putting my hands on them because I had to look for places to put the ice. To avoid the smell, I was breathing through my mouth, faster and faster, and then I was hyperventilating. I realized I was going to faint."

Another Canadian volunteer was Quebecker Diane Therrien of Trois-Rivières, who has lived in Thailand for the past 15 years. As an unpaid warden for the Canadian embassy, she has devoted most of the past week to the relief effort. Last Monday, when telephones were scarcely functioning, she visited hospitals and hotels all over the Phuket region, searching for Canadians and finding dozens of survivors. Then she spent three days in the resort town of Krabi, where hundreds of bodies of tsunami victims had arrived from the devastated resorts of Phi Phi island.

Along with a Thai friend, she worked for 12 hours a day. They visited hospitals, police stations, immigration offices, the ferry port where the corpses were arriving and the Chinese temple where they were stored. They rented equipment and hotel rooms for emergency workers. They helped the survivors get on airplanes to leave the region. They gathered photos of the dead and searched carefully for a missing Canadian woman, Rubina Wong, hoping to identify her by her dragonfly and goldfish tattoos.

"I felt it was my duty," said Ms. Therrien, who is head librarian at an international school in Phuket.

"I knew the embassy was relying on us," she added. "We were their only antenna in Krabi. Lives of people were depending on us, and people in Canada were worried about their relatives. It was no time to be playing games."

Denis Comeau, the Canadian ambassador to Thailand, said the embassy has about 10 volunteers helping with the recovery effort in Phuket. Of those, Ms. Therrien is among a core group who have been working every day.

"They're our guardian angels," he said. "They've come in every day, asking us what they can do. They keep coming back, every day."

--theglobeandmail.com 2005-01-04

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Can sympathise with her - i spent 2 days doing the same thing...not pleasant