RESCUE SQUADS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24420, 4 October 1940, Page 8

RESCUE SQUADS

A PERILOUS CALLING MANY “TOUGH JOBS ” WORKING AMONG RUINS (British Official Wireless) (United Press Association) (By Electric Telegraph—Copyright) RUGBY, Oct. 2. (Received Oct. 3, at 7.30 p.m.) The story of what “ tough jobs ” mean for the Bridlington A.R.P. rescue squads was told in a broadcast by Mr Thomas Alderson, of Leeds, one of the first recipients of the George Cross. “About our worst time,” he said, “ was when two five-storey buildings got a direct hit. We were called out .and found them in ruins. Planes were still about and bombs were crumping in the distance. We searched around and found the basement door partly uncovered in one house. The walls were still standing and did not look very safe, but we started at that basement door. We cleared it. Nothin'- was too small to move and I passed bits of brick, plaster and wood back along a chain of men till we managed to get inside the ground floor, The joists had collapsed and were jammed between the basement wall and the floor, and this had given protection to four people in the corner. There was a big farmhouse table in the middle of the floor. It had partly collapsed and half was supnorting beams and smashed walls from the floors above. Lying on my side I began to work a hole over the table, keeping a wary eye on unsafe debris and passing bricks and rubbish back along the chain of men. Boy and Girl Trapped "At last there was enough space for us to slide four people head first into the hole over the table, swing their legs round and pull them backwards through the basement door. A boy and a girl were still left badly trapped under heavy joists towards the centre of the basement. The table had now to be carefully broken up and removed, and again the debris was passed out, bit by bit. There was not room to use standard A.R.P. jacks so I called for motor car jacks and with these managed to raise the main joist a little. It started to crack, but by jacking immediately underneath the crack I raised the joist still further. Rescue Effected “By this time the cellar was filling with coal gas and water appeared to be rising on the floor. The boy and the girl were in severe pain so I called a doctor to give an injection. We had to work them free from the joists and slide them out, but at last, after four hours of hard work with shaded hand torches as the only means of light, it was done. Planes were still humming overhead, but I had been too busy to notice them.” Alderson, who is works supervisor of the Bridlington Corporation, has been training workmen in rescue work for the past two years.