One of the ISAR volunteers is a Filipina ICU nursing expert named Gregoria Marquez from Berne, Switzerland
Some 30 men and women volunteers, mostly paramedics, nurses, and doctors of International Search and Rescue (ISAR) arrived via the Lufthansa aircraft on Sunday. They brought with them a 6.5 ton mobile hospital, 80 kilos of medicines, medical equipment, and generators. These volunteers were accompanied by five media people from a German TV. Their initial destination was Guiuan, Samar, but they were told there are more people to attend to in Tacloban. So, they waited until yesterday evening (Wednesday) to board a US aircraft to bring them to Tacloban. One of the volunteers is a Filipina named Gregoria Marquez who is based in Berne, Switzerland. She is an ICU nursing expert.
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They waited patiently to be accommodated by a PAF aircraft but PAF couldn’t board them for 1,001 reasons. While in Manila, the team searched for a hotel near the airport somewhere in Baclaran. Two of the members got into a brawl with a British national who was beating up his girlfriend. They helped the female companion but when the British was released from jail, he got back at two of the volunteers and started a fist fight. What a welcome for volunteers who are willing to help our countrymen! I hope they don’t get the impression that Manila is truly the gate to hell. When Lufthansa heard about this, the team was moved to the company facility in Villamor Airbase where folding beds, clean showers, and free food were offered to them.
The ISAR group is composed of 140 active members, all volunteers, who go to missions. The group was started by firemen in Duisburg, Germany, but since firemen were not allowed to work abroad, they founded the organization. ISAR is a sub-organization of the OSOCC (On Site Operating and Coordinating Center) which coordinates when a disaster happens in a country. It is a classified team under the U.N. Their main focus in on urban search and rescue. It has three components: medical, rescue, and search with canine. In Tacloban, they will do mainly medical until such time a medical facility is built.
They had their first mission in 2003, and was in Thailand after the tsunami in 2004. They were also present in the aftermath of earthquakes in Pakistan (2006), Indonesia (2009), and Haiti (2010). When there are no calamities, they do small missions in Africa, mostly medical.
The author is VP-HR at Lufthansa Technik Philippines.
