The Three (3 page)

We were dealing with an incident on Baden Powell Drive when it happened. A taxi had clipped a Merc and overturned, but it wasn’t too hectic. The taxi was empty at the time, and although the driver had only minor injuries, we’d need to ferry him to Casualty to get stitched up. It was one of those rare still days, the southeaster that had been raging for weeks had blown itself out, and there was only a wisp of cloud trickling over the lip of Table Mountain. A perfect day, I guess you could say, although we were parked a bit too close to the Macassar sewage works for comfort. After smelling that for twenty minutes, I was grateful I hadn’t had a chance to scarf down the KFC I’d bought for lunch.

I was on with Cornelius that day, one of our newer guys. He was a cool oke, good sense of humour. While I dealt with the driver, he was gossiping with a couple of traffic cops who were on the scene. The taxi-driver was shouting into his cellphone, lying to his boss while I dressed the wound on his upper arm. You wouldn’t have known anything had happened to him; he didn’t flinch once. I was just about to ask Cornelius if he’d let False Bay Casualty know we were en route with a patient, when a roaring sound ripped out of the sky, making all of us jump. The taxi-driver’s hand went limp and his phone clattered to the ground.

And then we saw it. I know everyone says this, but it was exactly like watching a scene from a movie; you couldn’t believe it was actually happening. It was flying so low I could see the chipped
paint in its logo–you know, that green swirl curving round a ‘D’. Its landing gear was down and the wings were dipping crazily from side to side like a rope-walker trying to get his balance. I remember thinking, airport’s the other way, what the fuck is the pilot doing?

Cornelius was shouting something, pointing at it. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but I got the gist. Mitchell’s Plain, where his family lived, wasn’t that far away from where the plane looked to be headed. It was obvious it was going to crash; it wasn’t on fire or anything like that, but it was clear it was in severe trouble.

The plane disappeared out of sight, there was a ‘crump’, and I swear, the ground shook. Later, Darren, our base controller, said that we were probably too far away to feel any kind of aftershock, but that’s how I remember it. Seconds later a black cloud blossomed into the sky. Huge it was, made me think of those pictures of Hiroshima. And I thought, yissus, no way did anyone survive that.

We didn’t stop to think. Cornelius jumped in the driver’s seat, started radioing the base station, telling them we had a major incident on our hands and to notify the centre for disaster management. I told the taxi-driver he’d have to wait for another ambulance to take him to casualty and shouted, ‘Tell them it’s a Phase Three, tell them it’s a Phase Three!’ The cops were already on the road, heading straight for the Khayelitsha Harare turn-off. I jumped in the back of the ambulance, the adrenaline shooting through me, washing away all the tiredness I was feeling after being on duty for twelve hours.

While Cornelius drove, following in the wake of the police car, I pulled out the bergen, started rummaging in the lockers for the burn shields, the intravenous bottles, anything I thought we might need, and placed them on the stretcher at the back. We’re trained for this of course–for a plane going down, I mean. There’s a designated ditch site in Fish Hoek in False Bay, and I wondered if that was where the pilot was heading when he realised he wasn’t going to make the airport. But I won’t lie, training is one thing, I never thought we’d have to deal with a situation like this.

That drive is etched on my memory like you won’t believe. The crackle and pop of the radio as voices conferred, Cornelius’s white-knuckled hands on the steering-wheel, the reek of the Streetwise two-piece meal I’d never get to eat. And look, this is going to sound bad, but there are parts of Khayelitsha we usually wouldn’t dream of entering, we’ve had incidents when staff have been held up–all the ambulance services will tell you that–but this was different. It didn’t even occur to me to worry about going into Little Brazzaville. Darren was back on the radio, talking Cornelius through the procedure, telling him that we were to wait for the scene to be secured first. In situations like these, there’s no place for heroes. You don’t want to get yourself injured, end up another casualty for the guys to deal with.

As we got closer to the site, I could hear screams mingling with the sirens that were coming from all directions. Smoke rolled towards us, coating the windscreen in a greasy residue, and Cornelius had to slow down and put on his wipers. The acrid smell of burning fuel filled the ambulance. I couldn’t get that stench out of my skin for days. Cornelius slammed on the brakes as a crowd of people flooded towards us. Most were carrying TVs, crying children, furniture–dogs even. They weren’t looting, these guys, they knew how quickly a fire could spread in this area. Most of the houses are slapped together, shacks made of wood and corrugated iron, a lot of them little more than kindling, not to mention the amount of paraffin that had to be lying around.

We slowed to a crawl, and I could hear the thunk of hands slapping the side of the ambulance. I actually ducked when I heard the crump of another explosion, and I thought, shit, this is it. Helicopters swarmed overhead and I yelled at Cornelius to stop–it was obvious we couldn’t go much further without endangering our safety. I climbed out of the back, tried to steel myself for what we were about to face.

It was chaos. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have known it was a plane gone down–I would’ve assumed a bloody great bomb had gone off. And the heat that was coming from there… I saw the footage afterwards, the helicopter footage,
that black gouge in the ground, the shacks that were flattened, that school those Americans built, crushed as if it was made of matchsticks; the church split in half as if it was as insubstantial as a garden shed.

‘There’s more! There’s more! Help us!’ people were shouting. ‘Over here! Over here!’

It seemed like hundreds of people surged towards us yelling for help, but fortunately the cops who were on the scene of the minor collision pushed most of them back, and we could assess what we were dealing with. Cornelius started organising them into triage groups–sorting out who was most in need of urgent attention. I knew immediately that the first child I saw wasn’t going to make it. His distraught mother said they were both sleeping when she heard a deafening roar and chunks of debris rained into their bedroom. We know now that the plane broke up on impact, scattering burning parts like Agent Orange.

A doctor from the Khayelitsha hospital was first on the scene, doing a fantastic job. That oke was on the ball. Even before the disaster management team showed up, he’d already allocated areas for the triage tents, morgue and the ambulance station. There’s a system with these things, you can’t go in half-cocked. They set up the outer circle in record time, and the airport’s fire and rescue service were there minutes after we arrived to secure the area. It was vital they made sure that we weren’t going to have any more follow-up explosions on our hands. We were all aware of how much oxygen planes carry, never mind fuel.

We dealt mostly with the peripheral casualties. The majority were burns, limbs hacked by flying metal, quite a few amputations, lot of people with ocular issues–specially the children. Cornelius and I just went into overdrive. The cops kept the people back, but you couldn’t blame them for crowding around us. Screaming for lost relatives, parents looking for children who were at that school and crèche, others demanding to know the status of injured loved ones. Quite a few were filming it on their cellphones–I didn’t blame them–it provides a distance, doesn’t it? And the press were everywhere, swarming around us. I had to stop
Cornelius from punching an oke with a camera slung on his shoulder who kept trying to get right up into his face.

And as the smoke died down, you could see the extent of the devastation, bit by bit. Crumpled metal, scraps of clothing, broken furniture and appliances, discarded shoes, a trampled cellphone. And bodies of course. Most were burned up, but there were others, pieces, you know… There were yells going up all around as more and more were discovered, the tent they were using as a makeshift morgue just wasn’t going to cut it.

We worked through the day and well into the night. As it got darker, they lit up the site with floodlights, and somehow, that was worse. Even with their protective breathing gear, some of the younger disaster management volunteers couldn’t deal with it; you could see them running off to vomit.

Those body bags kept piling up.

Not a day goes by that I don’t think about it. I still can’t eat fried chicken.

You know what happened to Cornelius, right? His wife says she’ll never be able to forgive him, but I do. I know what it feels like when you’re anxious all the time, you can’t sleep, you start crying for no reason. That’s why I got into trauma counselling.

Look, unless you were there, there’s no way to adequately describe it, but let me try to put it in context for you. I’ve been doing this for over twenty years, and I’ve seen some hectic stuff. I’ve been at the aftermath of a necklacing, the body still smoking, the face fixed in an expression you don’t want to see in your worst nightmares. I was on duty when the municipal workers’ strike turned bad and the cops opened fire–thirty dead and not all from bullet wounds. You don’t want to see the damage a panga can do. I’ve been at car pile-ups where the bodies of children, babies still in their car seats, have been flung across three lanes of traffic. I’ve seen what happens when a Buffel truck loses its brakes and rolls over a Ford Ka. And when I was working in the Botswana bush, I came across the remains of a ranger who’d been bitten in half by a hippo. Nothing can compare with what we saw that day. We all understood what Cornelius went through–the whole crew understood.

He did it in his car, out on the West Coast, where he used to go fishing. Asphyxiation, hose from the exhaust. No mess, no fuss.

I miss him.

Afterwards, we got a lot of flak for taking photos of the scene and putting them up on Facebook. But I’m not going to apologise for that. That’s one of the ways we deal with it–we need to talk it through–and if you’re not on the job, you won’t understand. There’s some talk of taking them down now, seeing as those freaks keep using them in their propaganda. Growing up in a country like this, with our history, I’m not a fan of censorship, but I can see why they’re clamping down. Just adds fuel to the fire.

But I tell you something, I was there, right at ground fucking zero, and no ways did anyone on that plane survive. No ways. I stand by that, whatever those conspiracy fuckers say (excuse my French).

I still stand by that.

I was expecting to find one body that night. Not hundreds.

Volunteers do not usually patrol at night, but just as it was getting dark, our station received a call from a father deeply concerned about his teenage son. The boy’s father had intercepted worrying emails and found a copy of Wataru Tsurumi’s suicide manual under his son’s mattress. Along with the notorious Matsumoto novel, it’s a popular text for those who seek to end their lives in the forest; I have come across more discarded copies than I can count in my years working here.

There are a few cameras set up to monitor suspicious activity at the most popular entrance, but I had received no confirmation that he had been seen, and while I had a description of the teenager’s car, I couldn’t see any sign of it at the side of the road or in any of the small parking lots close to the forest. This meant nothing. Often people will drive to remote or hidden spots on the edge of the forest to end their lives. Some attempt to kill themselves with exhaust fumes; others by inhaling the toxic smoke from portable charcoal barbecues. But by far the most common method is hanging. Many of the suicidal bring tents and supplies with them, as if they need to spend a night or two contemplating what it is they are about to do before going through with it.

Every year, the local police and many volunteers sweep the forest to find the bodies of those who have chosen to die here. The last time we did this–in late November–we discovered the remains of thirty souls. Most of them were never identified. If I come across someone in the forest who I think may be planning
on killing himself, I ask him to consider the pain of the family he will be leaving behind and remind him that there is always hope. I point to the volcanic rock that forms the base of the forest floor, and say that if the trees can grow on such a hard, unforgiving surface, then a new life can be built on the foundation of any hardship.

It is now common practice for the desperate to bring tape to use as a marker to find their way back if they change their minds, or, in most cases, to indicate where their bodies may be found. Others use the tape for more nefarious reasons; ghoulish sightseers hoping to come across one of the deceased, but not willing to become lost.

I volunteered to venture into the forest on foot, and with this in mind, I first checked to see if there was any indication that fresh tape had been tied around the trees. It was dark, so it was impossible for me to be sure, but I thought I discerned signs that someone had recently made his way past the ‘do not pass this point’ signs.

I was not concerned about getting lost. I know the forest; I have never once lost my way. Apologies for sounding fanciful, but after doing this for twenty-five years, it has become part of me. And I had a powerful flashlight and my GPS–it is not true that the volcanic rock under the forest floor muddies the signals. But the forest is a magnet for myths and legends, and people will believe what they want to.

Once you are in the forest, it cocoons you. The tops of the trees form a softly undulating roof that shuts out the world beyond. Some may find the forest’s stillness and silence forbidding, I do not. The
y rei
do not frighten me. I have nothing to fear from the spirits of the dead. Perhaps you have heard the stories, that this place was a common site for
ubasute
, the practice of abandoning the aged or infirm to die of exposure in times of famine? This is unsubstantiated. Just another of the many stories the forest attracts. There are many who believe that spirits are lonely, and they try to draw people to them. They believe this is why so many come to the forest.

I did not see the plane going down–as I said, the forest’s canopy conceals the sky–but I heard it. A series of muffled booms, like giant doors slamming shut. What did I think it was? I suppose I assumed that it might have been thunder, although it wasn’t the season for storms or typhoons. I was too absorbed in searching the shadows, dips and ruts in the forest floor for evidence of the teenager’s presence to speculate.

I was about to give up when my radio crackled, and Sato-san, one of my fellow monitors, alerted me to the fact that a troubled plane had veered off its flight path and crashed somewhere in the vicinity of the forest–more than likely in the Narusawa area. Of course I realised then that this was the source of the booming sound I heard earlier.

Sato indicated that the authorities were on their way, and said that he was organising a search party. He sounded out of breath, deeply shocked. He knew as well as I did how difficult it was going to be for rescuers to reach the site. The terrain in some parts of the forest is almost impossible to navigate–there are deep hidden crevices in many areas that make traversing through it dangerous.

I decided to head north, in the direction of the sound I had heard.

Within an hour, I could hear the roar of the rescue helicopters sweeping the forest. I knew it would be impossible for them to land, and so I ventured forward with added urgency. If there were survivors, then I knew they had to be reached quickly. Within two hours, I started to smell smoke; the trees had caught alight in several areas, but thankfully the fires hadn’t spread and their limbs glowed as the flames refused to catch and began to die. Something made me sweep the beam of my flashlight up into the trees, catching on a small shape hanging in the branches. At first, I assumed it was the charred body of a monkey.

It was not.

There were others, of course. The night was alive with the sound of rescue and press helicopters, and as they swooped above me, their lights illuminated countless forms caught in the branches. Some I could see in great detail; they looked barely injured, almost
as if they were sleeping. Others… Others were not so fortunate. All were partially clothed or naked.

I struggled to reach what is now known as the main crash site, where the tail and the sheared wing were found. Rescuers were being winched to the site, but it was not possible for the helicopters to land on such uneven and treacherous terrain.

It felt strange nearing the tail of the aircraft. It towered over me, its proud red logo eerily intact. I ran to where a couple of air paramedics were tending to a woman who was moaning on the ground; I couldn’t tell how badly injured she was, but I have never heard such a sound coming from a human being. It was then that I caught a flicker of movement in my peripheral vision. Some of the trees were still aflame in this area, and I saw a small hunched shape partially hidden behind an outcropping of twisted volcanic rock. I hurried towards it, and I caught the glint of a pair of eyes in the beam of my flashlight. I dropped my backpack, and ran, moving faster than I have ever done before or since.

As I approached I realised I was looking at a child. A boy.

He was crouching, shivering violently, and I could see that one of his shoulders appeared to be protruding at an unnatural angle. I shouted at the paramedics to come quickly, but they could not hear me over the sound of the helicopters.

What did I say to him? It is hard to remember exactly, but it would have been something like, ‘Are you okay? Don’t panic, I’m here now to help you.’

So thick was the shroud of blood and mud covering his body that at first I did not realise he was naked–they said later that his clothes were blown off by the force of the impact. I reached out to touch him. His flesh was cold–but what do you expect? The temperature was below freezing.

I am not ashamed to say that I cried.

I wrapped my jacket around him, and as carefully as I could, I picked him up. He placed his head on my shoulder and whispered, ‘Three.’ Or at least that is what I thought he said. I asked him to repeat what he had said, but by then his eyes were closed, his mouth slack as if he was fast asleep and I was more concerned
about getting him to safety and keeping him warm before hypothermia set in.

Of course now everyone keeps asking me: did you think there was anything strange about the boy? Of course I did not! He had just been through a horrific experience and what I saw were signs of shock.

And I do not agree with what some are saying about him. That he’s possessed by angry spirits, perhaps by those of the dead passengers who envy his survival. Some say he keeps their furious souls in his heart.

Nor do I give any credence to the other stories surrounding the tragedy–that the pilot was suicidal, that the forest was pulling him towards it–why else crash in Jukei? Stories like these only cause additional pain and trouble where there is already enough. It is obvious to me that the captain fought to bring the plane down in an unpopulated area. He had minutes in which to react; he did the noble thing.

And how can a Japanese boy be what those Americans are saying? He is a miracle, that boy. I will remember him for the rest of my life.