Kylie Stevenson (Australian ex-pat) received a panicked call from the Patong beachfront and immediately made her way through the waste-deep water to assist those needed urgent medical help. After evacuating one patient via jet-ski to the hospital (roads were still under a meter of water) and helping calm and assist others, Kylie was able to get in touch with the patient who had been discharged from the SSS facility (recompression chamber treating injured divers) two days before and take her to safety.

Stan Petitdemange (French ex-pat) set up his in-land home as a refuge to take survivors to for safety. Once the water had subsided and the threat of following waves had ceased, Stan drove the foreign visitors he had rescued back to salvage their belongings from what was left of their hotel, before bringing them back to stay at his home indefinitely.

Lek Masosot (Thai national) immediately began arranging evacuations for both tourists and locals. She later went to Provincial City Hall where she and many other volunteers spent the night assisting survivors, coordinating with Thai officials, and looking for her own missing relatives.

Dr Luba Matic (Serbian ex-pat) was stationed in the SSS Khao Lak office at the time. With the combination of his emergency medical experience, plus having dealt with mass disaster after living through the Serbian war, was invaluable from the first moment. Together with members of the Khao Lak divingcommunity and other helpful citizens, survivors were found and rescued from under fallen buildings, in smashed cars, high up in trees and many other places where the first wave had dumped them. Using his medical expertise and local medical supplies, Dr. Luba’s priority was of course stabilizing and evacuating the most severe cases with the help of the Thai army. He was able to provide emergency aid to countless people in the hours following. With torches that night they continued the search and rescue for survivors, providing emergency aid and medications.

The next day, while Lek continued working with Thai officials in the area of search and recovery, and Dr. Luba continued his medical and evacuation work, Stan and Kylie went to assist the Thai Fire Brigade by diving in the flooded basement of the beachfront “Sea Pearl” hotel. By this stage (24 hours after the tsunami) the water was already green, contaminated by oil, petrol, general debris and the thick with the scent of death – a smell that everyone working in the post-tsunami clean-up became very familiar with over the next month. After retrieving bodies till dusk, they organized a team to join the effort the next day; however this had to be cancelled due to the increased contamination risks and lack of suitable protective gear available.

By the 28th the known survivors in Patong had all been hospitalized, and so it was time to help elsewhere. Communication was beginning to be restored, and the severity of the situation was slowly realized. Lek had found out that seven of her close relatives were missing in the northern vicinity of Takuapa and so moved her search and rescue efforts there. Dr. Luba drove to Phuket to obtain the assistance of Stan and Kylie. Like many volunteers at the time they were able to bring supplies of food, water and clothing up to isolated northern areas, counsel survivors, and take stranded tourists to the airport where the Thai government was providing free flights home.

Dr. Luba promptly realized the need to provide medical support for the survivors arriving at the airport. Many of these people had lost their loved ones as well as all their belongings, and were in such a state of shock that they were unaware of their own injuries. With the help of Stan, they camped out at the airport and again provided medical aid and follow-up treatments to departing survivors.

Kylie continued working to support the survivors, and later began campaigning to encourage the return of tourism. It had quickly become evident that the resulting lack of the tourist dollar would have serious implications on the local Thai community. Many Thai families rely solely on the tourist dollar, and without it they surely be reduced to poverty, extending the damage of the tsunami even further. Working with the local dive community, articles promoting the need for tourism in the areas that were safe and suitable for holiday-makers began being translated and sent to international media sources worldwide.

As the initial shock of the tsunami began to subside, the necessity of identifying the continually growing number of bodies became evident. Official Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) teams had been flown in from other countries specifically to identify their own nationals, and as such were all professionals with the latest equipment working in portable refrigeration units.

As the vast majority of victims were Thai nationals and the funds were not there for such luxuries at this time (donated funds were obviously needed elsewhere), Dr. Pornthip and Dr. Luba initiated early DNA sampling from victims. As founders and leaders of their own DNA teams with such big-hearted volunteers as Stan and many others, they conducted autopsies and collected DNA samples from over 3,000 decomposed bodies in Wat Yan Yao and Wat Bang Muang morgues.

Unlike the international DVI teams, these teams all worked voluntarily, outdoors in the sweltering tropical heat and lacking any up-to-date equipment, from sunrise to sunset seven days a week. These teams performed autopsies, anthropometrical ancestry identification, micro-chip implantation in victim’s skulls, manual and computerized facial reconstructions, and many other procedures to assist family members identify lost loved ones. Despite the conditions under which they worked, Dr. Pornthip and Dr. Luba’s teams collected the most DNA samples, and all with zero contamination. Dr. Luba now has the record for collecting more DNA samples than any other person in history.

As a team, SSS Hyperbaric Services Thailand pulled together during the most horrible disaster in Thailand’s history, and worked selflessly to assist as many people possible in any way viable. They would like to thank the founder of SSS, Mauricio Moreno, and their colleagues from the SSS facilities around the world for donating funds which allowed them continue working for the tsunami relief when others were no longer able to support themselves and had to return home.