Sarah’s story: Volunteering in the aftermath of an earthquake

Thornbury Nurse Sarah was recently deployed to Turkey in response to the Kahramanmaras earthquake with disaster response charity RE:ACT.

RE:ACT operates in the UK and overseas, providing direct humanitarian action when it’s needed most. They repurpose the hard-earned skills and experience of military veterans and turn them into exceptionally agile and resilient humanitarians, capable of rapidly deploying when people need immediate and urgent relief.

At Thornbury, we are incredibly proud of Sarah and what she has achieved. In support, we have donated £1,000 to RE:ACT to help fund future humanitarian action. Here’s Sarah’s story in her own words:

“I became involved with RE:ACT in October 2022 when I left the military after 23 years’ service within Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corp (QARANC), where I served as a Senior Military Nurse. This meant I had more time to pursue my interests. I was also working as an agency nurse with Thornbury Nursing, which provides me with the flexibility to pick up shifts around my interests and volunteering.

I have been a Thornbury Nurse for over 10 years, predominantly working in emergency departments but also supporting communities by providing complex care as a district nurse. I’ve also had the opportunity to support COVID screening and management, as well as maintaining generalist skills with ward work.

Volunteering with RE:ACT is helping me transition from the military into civilian life by enabling me to continue to help people in their time of need. I completed RE:ACT’s international responder training just 2 weeks prior to deploying in response to the Kahramanmaras earthquake, which hit Turkey and Syria on 06 February 2023. Due to my medical background, I was the Response Team Medic and therefore had a duty of care to provide medical care to my team.

Upon arriving in Hatay, a province in Southern Turkey which borders Syria, the true extent of the devastation was clear. Vast urban areas had been reduced to rubble where days before people’s homes and livelihoods existed. For most of us, this was our first time in an earthquake zone and the general mood was somber.

Whilst deployed with RE:ACT, my team’s main duties included:

• Assessing the needs of the affected populations of all 15 districts within the Hatay province of Turkey. Essentially, this is meeting with the local population to find out what their needs are – food, water, shelter, medical, etc. – and feeding this information back to other NGOs (non-governmental organizations) via the United Nations.
• Collaborating with Turkish charities and assisting them with distributing direct aid.
• Liaising with local hospitals across the province to assess their capabilities and working with the United Nations to provide support where needed.
• Clothing distribution. Working alongside Turkish Red Crescent and Turkish Scouting organisations, we would sort and pack clothing for onwards distribution to outlying towns and villages.
• Working with Turkish organisations to deliver aid directly to those in need, including the areas by the Turkey-Syria border.

We remained in the earthquake zone for the entire duration of our visit, which we were reminded of by the tremors felt on a daily basis. Then, on 20 February, a 6.4 magnitude earthquake hit the province of Hatay, the area we were deployed in. Thankfully, other than a few minor injuries, the team recovered well.

Despite a relatively short deployment of just over 2 weeks, the work we completed and the support we provided to the people of Hatay following this natural disaster was absolutely worthwhile. Lives have been changed, if not saved, by our collaborative response.

RE:ACT has a diverse cohort of volunteers across the UK that draws across a wide array of experiences, including military and blue light services. My response team consisted of a firefighter, retired policeman, an emergency planning officer and myself, a nurse. We started off as a group of strangers with a common desire to help those in need. By the time we arrived in Turkey, we were a well-bonded team ready to support those in need.

I wholeheartedly support the valuable work this charity conducts, and they are always looking for more volunteers. If this is something that you are interested in, please visit their website.

The charity relies on donations to enable a response to those in their time of need. If you would like to donate, you can do so here.”

We remained in the earthquake zone for the entire duration of our visit, which we were reminded of by the tremors felt on a daily basis. Then, on 20 February, a 6.4 magnitude earthquake hit the province of Hatay, the area we were deployed in. Thankfully, other than a few minor injuries, the team recovered well.

Despite a relatively short deployment of just over 2 weeks, the work we completed and the support we provided to the people of Hatay following this natural disaster was absolutely worthwhile. Lives have been changed, if not saved, by our collaborative response.

RE:ACT has a diverse cohort of volunteers across the UK that draws across a wide array of experiences, including military and blue light services. My response team consisted of a firefighter, retired policeman, an emergency planning officer and myself, a nurse. We started off as a group of strangers with a common desire to help those in need. By the time we arrived in Turkey, we were a well-bonded team ready to support those in need.

I wholeheartedly support the valuable work this charity conducts, and they are always looking for more volunteers. If this is something that you are interested in, please visit their website.

The charity relies on donations to enable a response to those in their time of need. If you would like to donate, you can do so here.”