TRU grads help Katrina victims

By Kelly Kay

After all the devastation, damage and heartbreak in New Orleans, it was the silence that got to Janice Bridgland.

Then there was the eerie, much-too-loud crunching sound her footsteps made as she and her team wound their way through streets thickly coated by dried-out muck.

“The only thing you heard as you walked was the crunching," Bridgland said. "Such loud crunching. So loud that you had to stop every few steps to listen for a barking dog in case you missed it.”

In the wake of hurricane Katrina, alumni from Thompson Rivers University (TRU) in Kamloops, joined an animal emergency relief effort to search for those left behind.

Bridgland, a 2004 graduate of Animal Health Technology (AHT) at TRU, was one of the first six technicians sent by the Canadian Animal Assistance Team (CAAT) to Louisiana on Sept. 14.

“Packing was a leap of faith,” Bridgland said. “We didn’t know what to expect at all (being the first team). It was an overwhelming experience in a really sad way, but by far the most valuable experience of my life in being able to use all the things I’ve learned.”

CAAT, a group of veterinarians and technicians funded by private donation, was founded by 1996 Animal Health TRU graduate Donna Lasser, who recruited many former classmates and others from her alma mater for the volunteer rescue effort, many using up vacation time to make the trip.

Animal health technologist and TRU grad Carla Rankin joined the fourth team, leaving Sept. 21.

“I don’t even think words can describe the damage of Louisiana,” Rankin said. “I had expectations of how it would look before I left, just basing it on what I saw on TV, and to my surprise it was nothing like what I imagined. The city is a ghost town. The only colour in some areas that you can see is this brownish-grey colour and the smell of the air is a combination of mould, death and toxins.”

For Michelle Virdee, another TRU grad, this was her fifth experience working with animal relief in a disaster and her third with the Noah's Wish Foundation team, which she joined in New Orleans.

“This was a weird disaster in that you couldn’t get away from it, it was all around you," Virdee said. "In the fires you can drive an hour and be away from it. But in Louisiana with the way the housing situation was and traffic lights not working…you were living the disaster.”

Virdee, Bridgland and Rankin all said the best moments of the experience came when reuniting pets with their owners.

“Two and a half weeks after the hurricane a man who had lost his house and his wife and thought he had lost his dog came into the shelter,” Virdee said. “He asks after a basset hound wearing a collar with the phone number stitched on it. When the clerk asked, 'Yellow stitching?' and brought him his dog he just broke down.

“We are there for the people, we just specialize in animals," Virdee added. "There is such a connection between people and pets and a lot of anguish that goes along with that. All the (property) a person has accumulated completely pales in comparison to (his) pet’s life and the emotion that goes along with that is indescribable.”

Bridgland and Rankin joined the CAAT animal shelter in Gonzales, Louisiana while Virdee worked in Slidell, a town northeast of New Orleans.

While CAAT dealt with emergency medical care for animals, Bridgland and Rankin went into New Orleans to rescue trapped animals and set up feed and water stations for animals still roaming freely.

“As I entered into some of the homes to rescue animals, (I) could see that some people must have been really frantic because there would be bags out or even someone’s breakfast still on the table,” Rankin said.

“One house stands out to me because the door that we broke into (led) to a children’s playroom and as I walked up the stairs looking for these people’s beloved cat I went into the washroom and saw a bathroom stool with the name Nicholas on it.… It was upsetting because you just pray that everyone is still alive.”

The teams are rotated every week, in part because the emotional impact on the volunteers contributes to stress and exhaustion. But the knowledge that many pets were still trapped also gave Bridgland much anxiety when her trip was over.

“I felt like it was really hard to come home, as much as I wanted to—to family and friends and a comfy house. For the first two days I felt very out of sorts, I felt that I should be helping. There was so much still to be done. So much help so desperately needed.

“In Vancouver we were met by the media at the airport,” said Bridgland. “They interviewed us right in the receiving area. I got off the plane not even knowing what I’m going to say to my husband. You don’t even know how you feel. When you’re there it all feels so surreal, you’re so focussed on what you need to do. You’re thinking rationally, not emotionally.”

All three technicians said they would do it again; it was a valuable experience and allowed them to use their training to its full potential.

“The emotions that you go through and crying for strangers, is something that we are generally not accustomed to doing,” Rankin said. “My heart goes out to everyone down there.”