Shortly after the January 12 earthquake, Captain Ron Huretski and his live-scent detection dog, Pearl, were deployed to Haiti as part of California Task Force 2 (CA-TF2), Los Angeles County Fire Department's world-class Heavy Rescue Task Force. The team departed March Air Force Base just after 10 p.m. on January 13 and were one of more than two dozens rescue teams arriving in Haiti to help. As of January 23, they had made eight rescues.
Captain Wheeler of Topanga Fire Station 69, projects that "they'll be gone at least until January 30, but that could change any day. They try not to use the dogs longer than two weeks, but it depends on recovery."
PHOTO BY JOHN SIPPLE  Captain Ron Huretski and his live-scent detection dog, Pearl, joined Fire Station 69 on September 4, 2009. They were deployed to Haiti on January 14 to aid in rescue operations with CA Task Force 2. |
Below are excerpts from an article, "Super Sunday for County Rescuers," from Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky's website: zev.lacounty.gov/news/public-safety/in-haiti-a-super-sunday-for-county-rescuers
Working throughout the night on Sunday [January 17], rescuers from the Los Angeles County Fire Department saved three Haitian women who had survived without food or water for five days, buried under a collapsed apartment building.
County firefighters reached the last of the three women–a 31-year-old found trapped on her bed in a tiny pocket below tons of concrete debris–at 7 a.m. Monday [January 18], capping a dramatic 14-hour operation by the task force. The three successful rescues brought to eight the number of earthquake victims saved by the task force since its arrival in Haiti last Thursday on a military C-17.
Sunday's apartment-building rescue began at 5 p.m. local time when dogs working with the Los Angeles County Blue Squad caught the scent of living victims under the rubble of the three-story apartment house. Using saws, heavy breaking equipment, cameras and listening devices, the team burrowed through several layers of pancaked concrete to reach the trapped victims. At 11 p.m., the work paid off. The rescue workers freed a pair of Haitian sisters, 18 and 20. Dehydrated and suffering minor injuries, the women were rushed to a makeshift Israeli-run hospital.
Through an interpreter, the sisters said that while trapped, they continued to hear noises made by someone buried below them. The County team renewed their digging through the night. By daylight, the team had tunneled 15 feet deeper into the tons of rubble. They reached a two-foot-high cavity where an injured but conscious woman lay pinned against her mattress. She too was rushed to the Israeli hospital.
The three rescues capped a very successful Sunday for the task force. At mid-day, the Blue Squad extricated a 30-year-old Haitian woman who had been trapped waist deep in the shattered concrete of a downtown building.
Later Sunday afternoon, Red team rescuers freed a dehydrated 50-year-old woman from a collapsed bank building. "When she came out of the void, she was singing," reported County Fire Battalion Chief Thomas Ewald, who leads the mission's deployment support team based in Pacoima.
Things did not go so well on Saturday. The L.A. squad thought they heard sounds of life beneath the rubble at a day care center in the city. Specially trained dogs were brought to the scene but did not pick up a scent. As team members did their best to dig through the wreckage, the tapping sounds stopped. It is still unknown whether anyone actually had been trapped.
The mission to Haiti by the County task force is being fully funded by the U.S. government. Despite the dangers, the task force from Los Angeles is in good spirits and has suffered no injuries.
On January 20, a 6.1 magnitude aftershock hit Port-au-Prince at 06:03 (EST). All team members were reported well and accounted for. The task force immediately initiated reconnaissance in the surrounding areas and renewed rescue operations.
