Reflecting on the anniversary of some pivotal major incidents

The month of October brought back some memories of some exceptionally tragic incidents, but from which a great deal of learning took place. This covered areas including emergency preparedness, response and recovery including assessment, command, control and communications, inter-agency working and co-ordination, safety and PPE, equipment, medical procedures, welfare and much more. Whilst I don't have the opportunity here to go into the results of that learning, I offer the following as food for thought.

The specific incidents I had in mind were the Aberfan disaster on 21 October 1966, where the collapse of a spoil tip engulfed and demolished the local primary school causing the tragic death of 116 children and 28 adults.

Aberfan 21 October 1966

The second incident was the Clarkston explosion on 21 October 1971 caused by a gas leak at the Clarkston Toll shopping centre in Scotland resulting in the deaths of 21 people.

Clarkston 21 October 1971

These horrific incidents led me to think about the first major incident I attended after taking up an appointment in the Scottish Ambulance Service and also reflect on the fact that in the majority of major incidents, the number of injured far exceeds the number of deaths, in some cases running into the hundreds. Triage, on site access, evacuation, treatment and distribution of the injured to appropriate facilities under continuing care is of course a major logistical and clinical speciality which has to co-exist with all the other activities undertaken in respect of an incident. Of course, the long-term physical and psychological effects of these incidents may remain with the individuals and communities involved for many years. In my opinion, we have a duty to learn as much as possible from any such incident and endeavour to address any improvements required for the future.

On 4 October 1989 a large gas explosion occurred in a tenement (apartment) building in Edinburgh. The blast was heard across the City and windows were smashed hundreds of yards away from the seat of the incident. One occupant fell several floors when the building collapsed but survived, trapped in his mattress. An account of the incident compelled from recent news articles is appended below.

Guthrie Street gas blast survivor speaks of being 'buried alive'. On October 3 1989 the 19-year-old student Martin Baptie went to bed in the first floor flat at number 27 Guthrie Street he had moved in to only the previous day.

'I thought I was going to die' - Guthrie Street gas blast survivor speaks of being 'buried alive' 30 years on.

On October 3 1989 the 19-year-old student Martin Baptie went to bed in the first floor flat at number 27 Guthrie Street. He awoke hours later ‘in a nightmare’, to find himself buried alive, trapped in a dark, dusty space surrounded by rubble and debris.

'I Thought I was Going to Die,' he said.

“I remember I could only move one of my arms,” said Mr Baptie, who now lives in Lancashire. 

“I was only able to push the mattress just a little so I could breathe, but apart from that I was stuck,” he said. 

Mr Baptie ‘shouted and shouted’ for help until his voice was sore, but no one came. 

Eventually he heard a faint noise, and thought help was on its way.

But then it went quiet again.

What Mr Baptie heard was the movement of firemen searching for survivors, but before they could discover him they had moved away to a different spot.

“Then I thought I was going to die, and I tried to prepare myself for death,” said Mr Baptie.

Mike Herriot, then District Ambulance Officer for West Lothian, was the first paramedic to assess survivor Martin Baptie from where he had been buried alive under a pile of rubble. 

Mr Herriot had to go into the debris still wearing his officer’s uniform of a suit and tie, which was ‘clearly inappropriate’ and helped to lead to changes in requirements for safety clothing (PPE) of paramedics. 

Mike Herriot in 1989 and 2016

“Access to him was difficult, to say the least,” said Mr Herriot, who had been called to the scene from Livingston and was sent into the rubble.

Mr Baptie remarkably had only minor physical injuries - shoulder and chest pains as well as cuts and bruises. 

“The problem was more the distressing situation for Mr Baptie,” said Mr Herriot. 

“He just needed to be taken out of there.”

"There was a ton of debris, bricks, rocks, beams and dust. The area was clearly unstable, but you got used to taking a higher level of risk in those days."

Not everyone who lived in the block had been accounted for, so rescuers continued to search for other survivors. 

"Time was ticking away, it drove everyone to keep searching," said Mr Herriot. 

"Paramedics never want to leave the scene when they don't have a patient and can't do their job. We wanted to see the incident right through."

Mr Baptie was so upset by the experience that all he could do was shout and swear at the rescuers.

“He did exceptionally well given the circumstances,” said Mr Herriot. “It was an extremely distressing situation for anyone to be in.”

Rescue workers managed to bring Martin Baptie out from under the pile of debris and on to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary for further treatment. 

“I remember him saying when he got out that he was lucky to be alive,” said Mr Herriot. “And he really was.”

Mr Baptie is taken to a waiting ambulance.

Those Who Died in the Guthrie Street Blast were Nicola Donnelly, a 21-year-old student, and Peter Small, a 35-year-old lecturer at Stevenson College in Sighthill, was also killed. 

Several other residents of the were injured, including Dawn Howbridge, 20, Henry Wylie, 20, and Paula Gaunt, 28, who lived in the same building as Mr Baptie, and Helen Lawrie, 47, who was visiting at the time. 

Mr Baptie had PTSD following the incident, and was treated by a psychologist, Dr Piernay of the Keil Centre in Morningside, who had treated survivors of the Piper Alpha oil rig explosion in 1988.

“It took a few years to feel like I was over it, but he cured me, he was superb,” said Mr Baptie. 

Mr Baptie believes he is ‘stronger’ because of the experience he went through. 

“I think it helps me get a bit of perspective on life. It makes you really appreciate things a lot more,” he said. 

Rescue led to Safety Changes for Paramedics and Firefighters. 

On the morning of October 4, 1989, 41-year-old Colin Foster was in the car on the way to work at the Research and Development Office of the Fire Service when the call came over the radio that there had been a major incident on Guthrie Street.

His boss was also in the car, and radioed to control that Mr Foster had a pioneering new piece of technology in the car with them: a thermal imaging device, one of the only ones in Scotland at that time. 

The device did not belong to the Fire Service, but was on loan for research purposes for a couple of weeks. 

The technology made a huge difference to the search. “We would have been searching all over the place without out it, but it allowed us to zero in our search and focus on a tiny area,” he said.

The use of thermal imaging technology showed a new way forward for the organisation.

Mr Foster was sent straight to the scene of what turned out to be a major gas explosion, where he was among the first rescuers to arrive.

“I saw three walls still standing and a huge pile of debris,” he said.

A turntable ladder was set up and Mr Foster was sent up to the top of the pile of debris, while the gas was still leaking.

“I looked back at the building and the roof was hanging there, it was ready to go at any time,” said Mr Foster.

“When I was up there I had been entirely focused on doing the scan, and being careful not to tread on wood or nails. At no time did I think of looking up at the roof.”

It was only when Mr Foster stepped away from the scene that he realised how big the explosion had been. 

"It was like something out of the Second World War," he said. 

The explosion also had an effect on the operation of Scottish emergency services including improved co-operation between agencies.

The blast was one of a number of incidents, together with changing risks and threats which led to the creation of the ambulance service Special Operations Response Teams, tasked to urban search and rescue operations in similar situations. 

Ambulance Special Operations Response Team today

Once created, this team was equipped with extensive new technology: including a version of thermal imaging which Colin Foster had used in its rudimentary form when he arrived on the scene.

“Lots of changes were made over the years to allow medical treatment to be given in those kinds of environments,” said Mr Herriot.

The incident also led to changes in the operations of the Fire Service. 

“Search and Rescue become more important after that,” said Steve Torrie, an officer in the Command and Control centre at the time. 

Eighteen-year-old Nicky Macintyre, who lived in a first floor flat with her one-year-old daughter, was away on the night of the explosion but was left with ‘nothing but the clothes she stood up in’.

The day after the explosion residents of the building were given ten minutes by emergency service workers to search through the rubble for belongings. 

But before it came to Ms Macintyre’s turn, the building collapsed and they were ushered out of harm’s way. 

Eventually it became clear that no more survivors lay beneath the rubble, and the rest of the building was safely demolished. 

"You never, ever give up hope. That's part of the fire service psyche," added Fire Officer Mr Campbell. 

"Whenever I go up Guthrie Street I still think about it," Mr Herriot said. "The majority of people probably aren't aware it happened. It's the same all over Edinburgh, people live and die and get saved and after a few years it all gets forgotten about."

'Bad workmanship' in laying gas pipe was to blame for explosion

Firemen pull personal belongings from the debris.

An inquiry launched into the cause of the disaster found that ‘bad workmanship’ in laying a gas pipe across a sewer in the Cowgate.  Giving judgement at Edinburgh Sheriff Court in April 1990, Sheriff Peter McNeil found that workmen laying the pipe in 1969 failed to follow the appropriate guidelines put in place three years earlier by the Institution of Gas Engineers. 

A cast-iron gas pipe fractured, leaking gas into sewers on the Cowgate and into the tenement at number 27 Guthrie Street. The explosion was then detonated at 7:25am, by some kind of spark or an electrical switch being turned on in the building.

Extracts from a story by Elsa Maishman and other sources.

Friday, 4th October 2019