Unloading boards, people, equipment, dogs – everything went as usual, as it happened more than once when our specialists returned from similar business trips around the world.
But at the same time, weary people in uniform stood solemnly to the sound of patriotic compositions, which were performed to them at the airport by a demonstrative orchestra of the Russian Emergencies Ministry.
And when the orchestra finished, people dispersed to accept armfuls of flowers and hug their loved ones. Looking at them, looking so ordinary, they’re not Rambo at all, somehow I can’t believe there’s a lot of lives saved on them. You will meet them on the street and you will not say that they are authorized by all authorized international organizations to fly around the world and to snatch people from the clutches of death. But they are truly heroes, because the employees of the Centrospas Detachment and the Lider Special Risk Operations Detachment have returned home. It is the elite, extremely taciturn, of the virtuosos of the cases of rescue.
For a week they carried out search and rescue operations in completely destroyed cities. 24/7 in three shifts.
It is interesting and important that the headquarters of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia coordinated the joint work of rescuers from three countries – Russia, Kyrgyzstan and Belarus. And that’s more than 130 people.
And the dog handlers and the doctors came back with them. A God specialist has also returned from Turkey. So they call the resuscitators in the medical community. Victor Belinsky – anesthetist-resuscitator. All these days he was in charge of the airmobile hospital deployed in Kahramanmarash. Most of the victims he rescued do not even know their savior by sight, as many were delivered unconscious.
Victor says a patient was brought in in serious condition, but apparently in perfect condition. The intensive care unit doctor realized that the person who urgently needed intensive care with artificial lung ventilation simply got sick from everything she saw in her hometown and fell in the street.
And often people who did not speak Russian needed psychological help, and our doctors provided it. This was told by the head of the polyclinic department of the Centrospas detachment, Tatiana Zhelezova.
“It’s always difficult to deal with human grief. Therefore, we tried to be not only doctors, but also psychologists,” she said.
In total, throughout the duration of the work, the doctors from our airmobile hospital provided medical assistance to 900 victims, including 240 children. In Turkey, about 740 cubic meters of rubble were dismantled by hand, including 8,400 cubic meters with the participation of heavy civil engineering equipment.
And in Syria, our rescuers removed 5.6 thousand cubic meters of construction waste. Dog handlers examined 750 square meters of rubble.
In addition to ground work, specialists from the Ministry of Emergency Situations also carried out an aerial mission. A Be-200 amphibious aircraft has been deployed to put out fires in the Turkish seaport of Iskenderun.
In one week, he carried out 73 emptyings and dumped 680 tonnes of water. In addition, 70 tons of humanitarian cargo were delivered to Syria by the department’s special heavy cargo planes, and 36 tons were sent to Turkey.
The day before, the head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, Alexander Kurenkov, addressed his subordinates.
“I would like to thank each of you for your dedication, your availability to help and to carry out the task. I ask you to organize the transfer of your area of responsibility to the services concerned and to prepare the airmobile groups for departure to permanent deployment points,” said the minister.