CHRISTCHURCH LETTER:Stephen Lynch and his friend did what they could to help at the CTV building in Christchurch where over 100 people are likely to have died
ONLY HOURS after his jeep was crushed in the city centre, father-of-four Stephen Lynch rushed back into earthquake-ravaged Christchurch to help.
Until late into the night of Tuesday, February 22nd, Lynch, a 43-year-old construction manager and his friend, Ed Leeson, worked at the site of the CTV building, where more than 100 people are likely to have died.
Lynch is still very upset by what he saw. “We took out bodies and we were looking for people,” he said. “Ed found three bodies and I found one.”
Lynch said teams worked on the site well into the night, battling aftershocks and thick plumes of dust thrown up the quake.
“They set up a temporary morgue at the car park at the back. You could see the bodies piling up in the morgue.
“There were legs coming out of a slab and we had to work around it,” he said. “It wasn’t nice. Everybody was just roping in. At 11.30pm the decision was made there would be no more people in there.”
It has been over a week since the quake rattled New Zealand, killing more than 200 people.
“Everybody gave their all and more. There was a lot of good people doing it throughout the city. It wasn’t in anyway an easy task. I know Ed is suffering,” Lynch said of the night at the CTV building.
He and his wife Mary (also Lynch) were in the city centre when the 6.3 magnitude quake hit the south island city.
The pair were about to grab a coffee only a block away from the now decimated site of the Pyne Gould Guinness building.
They parked their car on Manchester Street and walked down Armagh Street towards Starbucks.
Mary said they decided to stop into a camera shop. And then the quake hit.
The couple immediately knew the impact was much worse than the thousands of aftershocks that have hit Christchurch since September 4th, when a 7.1 magnitude quake shook the city.
“We just ducked into the camera shop when the quake happened. We knew it was a bad one,” she said.
“There were things falling off shelves. I was just waiting for it to end. When it ended we ran outside and we said, ‘people have died in that’.”
Dust was already rising through the streets, masking the extent of the destruction.
“We knew stuff was coming down. There was bricks and debris on the street. There was people shaking and on the phone,” she said.
“I remember Stephen saying you could smell gas. He said, ‘run, we have to get back to the children’.” But their vehicle was ruined.
The shops on Manchester Street had collapsed, crushing cars and people.
“All I remember is there were people working on the car beside ours.
They were pulling debris off the roof. We just started running straight up Manchester Street and we ran over the bridge and I remember seeing that Pyne Gould Guinness building and we were so upset,” she said.
“We were just blessed. There were three minutes in it from leaving the jeep and going around the corner. We weren’t on the street or in the car, if we were in the car we were goners.”
Mary’s car was outside the city centre and the couple drove towards Rangiora, a small town outside Christchurch to make sure their children were safe.
Once his family were okay, Stephen and his friend headed back towards Christchurch. They parked the car in the suburbs and walked into the city, eventually arriving at the CTV building.
“It’s one of these things. You get on with it. It’s not something I’d want to see and I wouldn’t want to do it again. It wasn’t very pleasant,” said Stephen.
Yesterday (local-time) New Zealand police confirmed the death toll has risen to 160. The final total is expected to be about 240.
Police are continuing the exhaustive process of matching up remains to DNA samples before they release bodies.
And one Irish family is making the exhaustive trek to New Zealand to recover the body of a loved one.
Irishman Eoin McKenna died when his car was crushed on Manchester Street. He was shopping at the time.
Two of his brothers, Kieran and Brendan, and his mother Theresa left Ireland yesterday to make the 18,000km trip to Christchurch.
McKenna (40), a nurse, has not yet been formally named as among the dead by police but his family hope to have his body next week, according to his friend, director of service improvement at the Canterbury district health board Brian Dolan.
“He was in a car which took the brunt of the impact. There’s no timeframe for when his body is released – hopefully next week,” Dolan said.
Dolan also said McKenna’s family would take some comfort in the fact his body was first located by a Christchurch police officer he was friendly with.
McKenna, a hugely experienced nurse, married New Zealand woman Sarah McKenna, who he met while working in Saudi Arabia, and had two children, Grace (7), and Tadgh (4).
“He’ll be a huge loss to the people of Christchurch. He was on a nursing team that made a difference for patients.
“He was very funny and witty and great craic to be around,” Dolan said.
“He was lent to us by Ireland and he’s a loss to us as well as them.”