Members of the Fairfax County team at work in Japan. (WTTG/U.S. Navy video, Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Matthew Bradley)
FEATURED IN NEWS
- Face-Chewing Victim Recovering in Miami
- Search for Survivors in Oklahoma Nearly Complete
- Police Chief: No Charges Likely in Virginia Parade Crash
- Empire State Building Lights Up for EMS Week
- Paramedic Fights Drug Abuse with Electronic Pill Bottle
- Columbus Fire Department Kicks Off EMS Week with Community Challenge
- NAEMT & NEMSMA Announce Strategic Partnership
FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. - The Fairfax County Urban Search and Rescue Team is back home from Japan.
It was a bittersweet homecoming for the seventy-four member rescue team who were deployed for seven days in one Japan's hardest hit areas.
The team found no survivors despite their round the clock efforts.
Images: Fairfax Search and Rescue Assists Quake Recovery
Elizabeth Kreitler helped find earthquake victims in Haiti. She said this mission was much different and much harder.
“You wonder how they could ever pick up. There is just debris and logs and destruction over such a wide area that it's hard to imagine how they could even start to clear it, because there's nothing still intact,” she said.
But the team is returning in high spirits. Many say just being there, finding victims, helped give survivors closure.
For family members, the team's hard work is nothing new. But they say this time around, knowing the ongoing threats of aftershocks and a nuclear meltdown, made them worry more than usual.
