Edgecumbe animal responders celebrated

Hannah Henderson was one of many responders involved in the animal evacuation of Edgecumbe.

A former Whakatane Miss Universe New Zealand contestant has been acknowledged for her involvement in what is regarded as New Zealand's largest ever animal rescue.

Hannah Henderson is a young woman of many talents. In 2015 she was awarded runner up in the Miss Universe New Zealand pageant, she boasts a successful career in acting and modelling and has worked as a surf-instructor.

Adding to the multitude of talents Hannah is also a self-proclaimed animal lover, who works closely alongside the SPCA.

Currently the 22-year-old works in an education team with the RNZSPCA Wellington division, as well as being a member of the SPCA emergency reserve team.

Her work with the SPCA over the last two years, spans from a love of animals since a young age.

'I've become way more involved with the SPCA then I originally thought I would be,” says Hannah.

'I work in the education sector, but you kind of get roped into lots of different ventures.

'I've helped the inspectors before, I'm on the emergency reserves team which is a night shift so in this role you have to attend the scene if a dog has been hit by a car or anything like that and I'm also involved in the national rescue unit team who responded to the Edgecumbe floods.”

Earlier this year the township of Edgecumbe was evacuated due to severe flooding. More than 1000 animals were left behind and the effort to save them became the largest animal rescue in New Zealand. Hannah was one of many involved in the evacuation.

'A while ago I saw that the SPCA were looking for emergency responders.

'Before you even get to be a part of the emergency team you have to pass physical and mental tests.

'You have to run, swim and carry heavy weights on your back so that if you were carrying an animal on your back you would know what it feels like.

'You have to learn animal first aid so that you can respond to the situation quickly if you were there.

'I started training for it and did weeks of theory, and I passed the test which I was stoked about.

'The national animal rescue team train every weekend, so there's a lot of training that goes in every week so that we are up to date and know how to appropriately respond to emergency situations.

'It's actually taught me a lot of skills in everyday life that people sort of frown at like ‘how do you know how to do that' and I just say I work at the SPCA.

'I think people think if you work at the SPCA you scoop a lot of poop, they don't actually realize we train through these courses.

'The amount of opportunities you have when you work there are through the roof you just have to take advantage of them.

'It opens up so many doors and it's so different to working in film and television, working with animals is such a stress relief.”

In a special evening hosted in Wellington recently, Hannah was acknowledged for her involvement in the animal evacuation of Edgecumbe.

'The night we had recently was a celebration to finish up the Wellington SPCA as its own business and the transition into now being a part of a regional branch.

'We are no longer Wellington SPCA anymore, we're RNZSPCA which means all SPCAs around New Zealand are now working under one organisation. We're not all separate joints, we have regional managers now.

'During the celebration I got a medal for the Edgecumbe rescues we did,” says Hannah.

'Around five others were awarded with medals as well but so many more people should have got medals.”

She was presented with a certificate of award which reads:

Following the evacuation, this responder performed demanding and hazardous animal rescue under the direction of the SPCA

Wellington SPCA would like to recognize the foresaid responders' effort by rewarding the following medal

Animal emergency management operation service

The call-out

'I got the call at 7.30pm on the Thursday night the same day the wall breached,” says Hannah. 'We were told there was emergency flooding in Edgecumbe and they needed responders ASAP.

'We didn't know how long we were going to be gone for or what kind of situation we were going to step into, I quickly found a puppy sitter and packed a bag.

'We left wellington at 10.30pm and got to Edgecumbe at around 7.30pm the next day as we were towing all of the rescue gear. '

'There were a few slip ups, with roads absolutely drenched with water and we had no idea how deep it was.

'When we got there it was devastating, we were the first people seeing it.

'We were the first responders, which as awesome for us because usually it's the army or MPI who get there first,” she says. 'My manager at the time had a huge job on his hands.”

The rescue

'There were some problems with power being turned on while rescuers were in the water, which was quite scary because no one could move until the power boxes were switched off.

'We just had to go into houses and they were flooded and broken in half, you didn't know where you were stepping, if you were going to slip through the floor or through a window.

'Some of the days the water just wouldn't go down, some the water rose and others the water would leak back down. Houses were just slowly breaking.

'We were treading through glass and there was so many viruses and germs in the water, I actually ended up getting an infection on my mouth.

'I woke up and had a massive black scab on my lip, I asked one of the vets at the evacuation and he said it was an infection,” she says. 'It was caused from a cut where water had gotten in.”

'Everyone started to feel sick, even though we had all the right equipment and got proper firemen wash downs at the end.

'We had to deal with an aviary where there were more than a thousand birds, there were ducks, cats, cows and litters of kittens.

'There were pig dogs and they don't respond well to collars or females, one of the other responders on our team, Gina, actually ended up getting bitten.

'We thought we were going to be there for three days and we ended up being there for a week. Every day it was just getting worse because you knew the animals would just stop fighting,” she says. 'In that first three days they still had strength but they were losing that fight by the end.

'There were so many animals, it was like a zoo unleashed, and we were running from house-to-house trying to do the best we could.”

Public anger

'We had to continue to remind people that we were going into these houses to rescue animals, we weren't there to steal anything.

'I did a day where I went down to the fire station, just for lunch and I ended up down there for around five hours talking to the public.

'A majority of the time I was getting abused, residents were angry, they wanted to know where their animals were and why I was sitting at the station,” says Hannah. 'I had been going for 16 hours straight, I hadn't eaten.

'Once they sat down and I talked them through the operation that was happening, they sort of calmed down and started apologizing.

'I was heartbroken going through people's houses, there were family heirlooms and I tried to cover as many as possible with towels and boxes so that if looters did come through they wouldn't find any of it.

'I was trying to keep passports out of the water, if I saw it floating I'd try and get it to a higher place so that they didn't lose it.

'You could tell that when that water broke, there was such a rush just to get children out of bed, there was still dinner on the stove, people doing their homework and they'd all just left it there.

'Some of the houses had just sold, which is devastating.

Aftermath

'When we were there it was all sort of a blur, we didn't really think about what we were looking it. It isn't until afterwards when it hits you.

'I found it a little bit hard to deal with, but the emergency response teams offered support if we needed it and in our own team we all had each other.

'Between our seven emergency responders, the RNZ Whakatane SPCA team of seventeen and the Massey University Wellington vet school, we saved more than 1000 animals.

'In the beginning there were only us seven then as the days went on more teams joined us which was awesome.

'Reuniting animals with their owners was so beautiful.

'They were so distressed so seeing them in the arms of people they were familiar with was amazing but it was a big job.

Moving forward

'I used to do surf instructing and lifeguarding in Australia, so I've done CPR on people before when they were having heart attacks and through other medical conditions,” she says.

'Bringing someone back to life compared to being a part of a national disaster where thousands of people lost their homes, and you're the first person to see their homes before they even see their homes, that was different.

'No one expected to get medals and certificates,” she says. 'A certificate doesn't really portray what happened, we all just sort of reflected at the end and realized that was going to stick with us forever and we hope we can learn from it and respond even faster the next time around if that's even possible.

'To actually have appreciation though, and know that the community appreciated what we did that was so cool.

'I still appreciate everyone that came to help, I don't think everyone who could have been recognized has but we all appreciate them and what they sacrificed to help out.

'It's definitely not the last time I will be a part of something like this. It's not fun, but it's my way of giving back.”

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