Bringing closure to Surfside
Urban Search and Rescue Medic, Joe Hernandez of Pine Island, is just one of many crew members who have done all they can in the aftermath of the Surfside condominium collapse.
“They finally gave the word to go from a rescue to a recovery,” Hernandez said Wednesday. “Many hearts are breaking, including the responders.”
In May, the search-and-rescue team completed a class for physicians and paramedics, learning advanced medical procedures in a situation not unlike the Champlain Towers incident. According to Hernandez, it often takes some time before the training is put to use. The state of Florida Fire College has a simulated collapse training venue, just like the real event that happened in Surfside, he said.
“These physicians and medics learn how to navigate through, underneath and over the concrete rubble and steel performing advanced medical procedures on entrapped victims,” Hernandez said.
This training increases survivability by 85 percent, so long as the entrapped victim is treated aggressively prior to being extricated, he said. The main treatment for the type of incident at Surfside, which he calls CRUSH syndrome-aptly named because it can crush muscles and cells beginning a manifestation of entropy within the victim’s body that can cause death.
“We try to put the cells back together and we try to push the potassium and calcium back into the cells and change the PH so the victim can urinate without losing a kidney.”
The medical unit basically brought an ICU equivalent into the rubble to perform whatever treatment was necessary, such as sedation for an amputation, as the window closed a bit more each day on the chances of finding survivors.
The most heartbreaking moment, by far, came when the team located the 7-year-old daughter of one of their own firefighters from Florida Task Force 2, Miami, deceased amidst the rubble.
“They were on the pile at night searching,” said Hernandez. “They knew the floors that she lived on and what was inside the apartment as far as belongings, so when they started hitting all that, they called him over to the area and they surrounded him, because it doesn’t look the same after that many days — after that type of an event. When they brought her out, he took off his jacket and draped it over his baby girl and put a little American flag in her hand.”
His entire crew was sent home that evening, he said.
The early retirement or end of a career due to PTSD, and often complex PTSD from this brand of personal trauma is not uncommon. Complex PTSD, he explained, is the add-on of multiple distressing events over time.
After having lost his own 21-year-old son, who was a soldier, and taking some time off, Hernandez said he went back to work to come upon a multiple vehicle accident almost immediately, wherein three 18-year-olds died.
“It was time for me to go at that point,” he said. “Hopefully, he’ll have enough time,” he said of his fellow team member. “If not, they’ll work with him and try to arrange for him to do another type of service within the department.”
In this event, there was an unbelievable state and federal cooperation, the likes of which he’s never seen,” Hernandez said,
“They really strengthened the state teams after 9-11,” he said. “In our state, we have eight teams. Two of them are federal and the other six are state teams. We had all of them at the collapse at the same time. After their ninth day on the rubble pile with Tropical Storm Elsa nearing the state, our governor allowed those six teams to go home and Florida teams 1 and 2 were able to continue working.
“At the end of the day, when they lay their heads down, everyone will know they’ve done the best they can.”