[lively instrumental music playing]
[ocean waves crashing]
[lively music turns ominous]
[man1] It was a beautiful day.
You could feel the heat from the volcano.
You could feel that the ground was warm.
[ominous music playing]
[man2] You kind of get these beautiful yellow colors.
Dark, dark oranges as well.
[man3] I mean, just colors everywhere.
Steam popping up out of the ground…
It was an absolutely breathtaking sight.
[woman] It looked like Mars or something.
[ominous music plays]
There was a lot more steam than I thought there would be.
[man1] You knew there was something
beautiful and terrible, and you wanted to see it…
but our tour guides just said, "Do not go near the edge of the crater."
[ominous music plays]
[woman2] I was getting really anxious.
And I talked to our tour guide,
and I asked him, "What do we do if there is an eruption,
because I'm getting a little nervous here?"
[man2] I love my wife more than anything
but being anxious is not an unusual situation for her
so I did just brush it off for the most part.
They even said the words, "It's not going to erupt."
-[wind howling] -[ominous music crescendos]
[ominous music softens]
[waves crash on the shore]
[soft tense music playing]
[man1] As a young Kiwi,
what better place to grow up?
[gentle piano music playing]
You got the hills, and the hunting and the fishing.
[seagulls squawking]
And the ocean to swim in.
You know, it… it… there's nothing better.
[children chatter indistinctly]
Whakatāne is a beautiful community, full of adventure.
[woman] Geographically, we are on the east coast of the North Island.
Auckland's here.
And then down the coast is Whakatāne.
People would pronounce it "Wock-a-tain" or "Feck-a-tah-nee" or
"Wock-a-tah-nee" or whatever.
But it's a small community that has a lot of love at the heart of it.
[waves rippling]
[man2] There's 38,000 people in Whakatāne.
We have uh, 51 percent non-Māori, you know,
and 48 percent Māori.
[speaking Māori]
[Pouroto] And our communities support one another.
[soft music playing]
And together, we have got a beautiful area,
which includes the living active, breathing volcano,
Whakaari. The English name, "White Island."
[man] White Island is about 48 kilometers off the coast of Whakatāne.
When you're driving down the coast,
you look out across
the horizon and you see the large
plumes of white smoke coming out of the crater.
[waves splashing]
Absolutely amazing. It's just the raw beauty of nature.
[Pouroto] In our folklore, we come from the mountains.
We actually are descendants of Whakaari.
[soft music playing]
And we are the protectors of the Island itself.
She is an awesome energy and power unto her own right.
But she's also very special in terms of tourism.
[light music plays]
[Hazel] People love White Island.
And so many people are connected to White Island Tours here.
Our restaurants,
our motels,
everything… our shops, our boutiques…
[birds tweeting]
All of those rely on people that adventure tourism brought to our town.
-[light music continues] -[waves rippling]
[woman] Our wedding was
the most perfect magical day ever.
I don't think I ever smiled that much in my entire life.
[applause]
[nostalgic music playing]
[Matt] I'm an adventure seeker.
She is absolutely not an adventure seeker.
-I'm more of a laying-out type of girl, -[Matt chuckles]
[Lauren] or um… just, relaxing at a beach, or something like that.
[Matt] So for our honeymoon, we started looking at cruises.
We found this one for New Zealand and we looked at it.
It was like, "Oh this is great! New Zealand has all this amazing geography
and attractions. This seems perfect."
[boy] My sister and I,
we really like anything that's gonna give us a lot of adrenaline,
and I suppose, put us at some kind of enjoyable risk.
[Jesse] Oh, fuck!
Woo!
So we jumped off the Auckland Tower.
[Jesse whoops]
We went black water rafting.
My mom and dad had previously been on a few cruises,
and they really enjoyed them. And they brought it to us,
my sister and I, the idea of going on a cruise to New Zealand.
And on that cruise, we were given the options of excursions onto the mainland.
[Lauren] I would pick out an excursion one day,
and Matt would pick out an excursion for a different day.
So December 9th was actually Matt's day to pick out an excursion.
I'm into everything science. And it sounded really interesting,
like an actual volcano that you can walk up to and look into.
[Jesse] White Island was something different
that you wouldn't normally be able to do,
being one of the world's most active volcanoes.
[Matt] I mean, from the description, it was a nice easy hike.
It's not like you need rock climbing gear and everything else to get up there.
It was, just walk up to the crater and look in and see this amazing volcano.
They made it sound exciting, they didn't make it sound dangerous.
And I was like, "Okay, that… it looks good."
You know, we looked at the description, and I was like, "Okay."
-[soft music playing] -[seagulls squawking]
[man] We live in Hamilton in New Zealand,
and I'm a full-time pastor at a church.
My daughter, she'd been studying through school geology and volcanic activity,
and I said to her, "We should go while we have the opportunity to go."
[soft music continues]
And then for my 50th birthday,
she'd surprised me with tickets to go out to Whakaari.
[Geoff] Monday morning, it's quiet.
There's not a lot of traffic around.
We arrived at the tour office and we read through
a couple of safety documents, and then were asked to sign
just our contact details and next of kin details.
[indistinct excited chatter]
I know there's a risk and I'm there with my daughter,
I'm not going to put her in danger.
But at no point did I ever fear what we were actually doing.
[wind howling]
-[woman1] Morning! -[woman2] Morning.
[Geoff] That day, there were a few boats that toured the Island,
and we were in the Phoenix.
-[adventurous music plays] -[seagulls squawking]
We left the wharf,
traveled out on the river for five or ten minutes.
[ominous music continues]
You cross the river bar heading out into the open ocean…
[waves lapping on boat]
And then from there on to White Island.
[adventurous music continues]
[Jesse] We departed from the main cruise ship around 9:00a.m.
We took an hour-long bus ride to Whakatāne,
to the port where we were taking off from, with 40 or so other tourists.
[Matt] We all got onto the Te Puia,
and the tour guide said it was a brand new ship.
I think they just gotten it that year.
[waves lapping against boat]
[Jesse] There were four guides on the Te Puia.
They were locals to Whakatāne,
and they were very excited to tell us about the history of White Island.
-[tense music plays] -[ocean rippling]
[woman] The morning of December 9th,
it was Hayden, Tipene, Jake, and myself as guides.
We prepped the boat and then we just left like every other day.
Closer to shore, we'll take you on a fully guided tour of the inner crater area.
And this will take approximately an hour to an hour and a half.
[Mark] My younger brother, Hayden, loved the outdoors
and he had a passion for summer.
And in 2009, he started as a tour guide, guiding in Whakaari.
Hayden kept a detailed diary of every trip that he went to the Island.
And he'd done 1,111 trips.
[Jesse] That's amazing.
[laughing] I did not know that was Hayden's 1,111th trip to the Island. No.
[Kelsey] Hayden's probably one of the longest standing guides.
He helped train me at work, and then, yeah,
after work we'd go to the local fishing club,
or we'd take trips up to the Tarawera Falls.
He was always up for an adventure.
[Mark] He developed a huge passion for the whole environment.
Not just Whakaari, and not just the volcano.
[waves rippling]
[lively guitar music playing]
[Jesse] The gusts were blowing, the swell was quite large.
A lot of the poor passengers actually were
being moved to the back of Te Puia
cause they were feeling quite seasick.
I was sitting with my family, we were kind of…
not making fun of them but laughing a little bit,
smirking to ourselves. We quite enjoyed being on the water.
And we were enjoying the bumpy ride.
[waves rippling]
[Matt] We had no idea how rough the seas were going to be.
We were on that boat for probably 90 minutes.
And I would say, at least seven or eight people were vomiting just 'cause
the entire ship would pitch up and then it would pitch back down,
and you would see ocean then sky, then ocean then sky, then ocean then sky.
[waves crashing]
[Lauren] I was so close to throwing up.
I mean, I was literally like, holding my stomach like this.
-[boat engine churning water] -[seagull squawks]
[Mark] It's an hour and a half out there and an hour and a half back.
Some days, you can go out there and it can be rough.
It can be horrible. And if you're not used to being on a boat for an hour,
your sea legs go pretty quickly.
[lively music playing]
Hence, there was another option as well.
You could take a helicopter and that was only a 20-minute flight.
[soft music plays]
[helicopter engine hums]
[man] Waking up that day
for me was a little bit of nerves, a little bit of stress.
This is my first day where I was allowed to fly passengers solo.
-[helicopter engine hums] -[gentle music plays]
I went to to New Zealand initially for my license.
Just looking for a good place to learn to fly.
[gentle music continues]
On a clear day,
if you're taking off from the mainland, you'd be able to see White Island.
You can fly in a straight line for it.
[soft music continues]
And the conditions that day, they were just… they were perfect conditions.
-[tense music plays] -[helicopter engine hums]
[waves rippling]
[Geoff] As the Phoenix got real close to the Island,
the crew are starting to prepare us for getting off.
-[waves rippling] -[crane engine humming]
And my daughter said, "Let's go Dad. I want to be first on the Island."
[waves splashing]
[indistinct chatter]
-[tense music plays] -[waves crashing]
[Geoff] The tour started and uh…
we just slowly walked.
The two tour guides, one of them would go first
and one of them would go last, and as a group we would stay between them.
[tense music continues]
[tense music turns ominous]
[Brian] It's kind of like a scene out of Jurassic Park
when you approach it.
[helicopter engine hums]
Landing on White Island, first time for me was like landing on the moon kind of,
because it's such a surreal kind of environment.
-[helicopter engine hums to a stop -[helicopter blades whir]
So after we landed, I gave them the safety briefing.
And I start walking towards the crater.
[Kelsey] Most of the volcano is underwater.
So you're only seeing the top of it.
White Island is a stratovolcano.
When it erupts, it doesn't tend to have lava flows like the Hawaiian volcanoes.
It tends to put down layers of rocks
and ash, and build itself up that way.
[roaring sound]
[Matt] When the Te Puia arrived at the Island,
we had to get in these small… they call them "zodiac boats."
They're just inflatable rubber boats.
There's just a really quick trip to the Island.
Yeah, about a minute or two.
[waves lapping]
[Matt] Then they arrived at this very rickety cement jetty
with a rusted metal ladder on it.
-[waves crashing on shore] -[seagulls squawking]
[Jesse] You had the sounds of the waves crashing onto the beach,
washing up onto the shore which gave that sea breeze that smell of the salt.
And then you also have
this almost like a… a strong malodorous smell of sulfur.
[waves crashing]
It looked quite barren. No signs of life.
[Matt] When we walked off that jetty and got our first real glimpse…
I had a picture in my head of what a volcano would look like and
this was not it.
[steam whistling]
No lava. Just lots and lots of steam.
[tense music plays]
[Lauren] It was very beautiful,
but I felt like we were very much in the middle of nowhere. [chuckles]
[ominous music playing]
[Jesse] From there, we created separate groups.
My guides on the Island were Hayden and Tipene.
Tipene was, I believed to be learning. Hayden was showing him the ropes.
Tipene was very inquisitive…
always asking questions, you know.
Proud to be a Māori.
He was excited to have that job.
He enjoyed it, going out on the boat, mixing with people.
He loved telling them all sorts of stories,
Māori myths and legends.
He wasn't supposed to work that day.
We were going to do some shopping.
But he was called into work to fill in for someone and then he went to work.
[steam whistling]
[Mark] These tour guides and pilots and skippers,
they know the Island so well, down to every last rock.
They know Whakaari more than anybody else.
[Hayden] Alright, everyone! Uh, welcome to White Island.
I'll be your guide today for our little tour around the Island.
[Matt] They gave us a hard hat that had a chin strap on it,
and then they gave us a respirator.
[Hayden] So what we're gonna do is we're gonna head around the side here
up to that main crater.
Uh, stop at a few points of interest on the way.
I'll let you know some information about the Island.
Um, so yeah, but as long as everyone's all good,
we'll start our tour. We'll get going.
[waves crashing on shore]
[Jesse] The first group left pretty promptly
after having a short safety brief.
We were still collecting our group together.
[Lauren] So what's this for?
So you're going to suck on them
and it's going to help produce saliva.
So that any irritation that you get from the steam itself,
it's just going to help soothe it. So you're not coughing so much.
[gentle music playing]
[Matt] The Island track is about a singular loop that you start at the beach.
Once you reach the Crater Lake,
you turn around and make your way around the Island.
And then back to the mouth at the entrance.
[gentle music continues]
[Brian] You got quite a bit of gas on the Island that tries to escape.
It's something that has to work its way up through a more viscous
muddy substance.
So you kind of get that bloop-bloop, those kind of noises going on.
[bubbling sound]
[Hayden] So what's happening is the sulphur's coming up with the steam.
It's crystallizing, falling back down on top of itself,
and then it forms a chimney-like structure, like on a house.
And so we call it the sulphur chimney area.
[steam whistling]
[Geoff] The landscape… it's rock and ash and mud.
But then strewn amongst
these grays are sulphur deposits
that are the most beautiful bright yellow,
and bright white crystals that seem to sparkle in the sunlight.
[lively music plays]
And you actually get the feeling of the vastness
and the power of what you're encroaching on.
This glimmer of, you know, Mother Nature
at her most beautiful, but at her most deadly.
[music crescendos majestically]
Our guide said that the lake is normally a beautiful bluey-green,
and that day it was white because perhaps overnight,
there'd been some kind of activity
that had caused ash to fall back down on the lake.
-[steam whistling] -[waves crashing]
I think it happens quite often.
And for me the guides were good with it, so I was good with it.
[steam whistling]
[Lauren] So we start walking up towards the crater.
We stopped to take some photos every couple yards or so,
and I talked to our tour guide and I asked him,
I said, "So when was the last eruption?"
Because I'm get… my… I'm getting a little nervous here.
He said there was one in 2013, one in 2016,
and I'm like, "Well it's the end of 2019 now and I'm getting really nervous."
Hayden mentioned the Island was at a Level-Two risk.
He didn't describe what that means at the time.
Um, but he did say it's at a higher risk of activity, which to me was worrying.
[steam whistling]
[Mark] Level One, Level Two didn't really mean a lot.
Level One, you know, not much happening. Level Two was heightened activity.
And then Level Three was an eruption so, you know that…
[inhales]
There was a massive amount of scope between Level One and Level Three.
[haunting music]
[haunting music turns suspenseful]
[Geoff] We made our way back down to where we had left off.
We got back onto the Phoenix and were just getting ready to leave.
-[boat engine roars] -[indistinct chatter]
We began to chat with one of the tour guides
about how
all the volcanic activity at White Island had been either overnight
or when nobody had been there.
[tense music continues]
So, it was almost like it was being kind to people to visit.
It was like "I'll erupt when you're not there" sort of thing.
[boat engine hums]
As we left the Island and headed back, I then look back up towards the crater.
I can see the tour from the other boat.
[Kelsey] It was always pretty cool to get up to the crater
and just hear everyone gasp and say,
"Wow," and "Oh my God, this is amazing,"
and all start snapping photos.
[steam whistling]
We'd get geologists coming out to see it and really kind of have a look at it.
And then you get the other end of the scale, which would be like,
"I just want a photo of the crater. I just want this for Instagram."
[steam whistling]
[Matt] We got to the top of the crater,
I would say probably around two o'clock in the afternoon.
You're just looking down into this gaping, never-ending pit of steam.
It's an intimidating sight.
They gave us another opportunity
where we could take pictures of us in front of the crater.
I noticed another ship, the Phoenix, had just departed the Island,
and then we hung out up there for a few minutes,
and then started the journey back down.
[Lauren] I'm thinking, "Okay, we're on our way down.
The tour is coming to an end." So I'm feeling a little bit better.
-[steam whistling] -[ominous music plays]
[Kelsey] Because they were from a cruise ship,
we were sort of on quite a tight time schedule.
So we were moving pretty quick. We're on our way back to the jetty.
[Lauren] The other tour is probably 10 minutes behind us,
and so we're leaving the crater, and Hayden is coming up towards the crater.
[tense music plays]
From the crater you kind of loop back,
then it's another 500 meters or so to the beach.
I had four passengers that day, two couples.
And at that stage, that's where we passed them with the boat,
the groups that were walking towards the crater.
I did recognize Hayden and said hi to Hayden and…
while he made his way up towards the crater with his tour group.
-[tense music plays] -[steam whistles]
[Jesse] We made our journey up to the acid lake.
We could see the bubbling in between the clouds of steam
that were wafting up into our faces.
Hayden had told us that we could only stay there for maybe two to three minutes,
just enough time to have a good look and take some photos
because the chemicals that were being released at the top
there were a lot more harmful.
Everyone was rushing to get a photo opportunity.
[waves crashing far below]
It was time to move on, single file.
My sister was right up the front with Hayden.
I was with my parents towards the middle of the group.
[waves crashing]
[Jesse] About halfway down to the jetty, there were these two water streams,
and they came from different parts of the Island.
So the tour guides actually had us stop
and stick our fingers in the water and actually taste it.
You could actually taste the different mineral contents.
[water gurgling]
I had just tasted the water, and I had my back to the crater,
and I heard one of our other tourists say "Hey, look at that!"
And you turn around and see this little black cloud coming out of the volcano.
It didn't look intimidating. I actually took a picture of it.
[tense music plays]
It was just like a chimney smoke coming up. No sound.
[Jesse] We all turn around to see what almost looked like a black firework,
or like a dementor from Harry Potter with a black long tail.
So we all whipped out our phones, started taking photos.
Shortly following, there was another larger bang,
followed by a massive, even larger group of rocks, flying into the air,
and then slowly that began to increase in intensity and size.
[thunder rumbling in distance]
[Lauren] I knew… I knew instantly.
This is, this is bad news. This is bad news. We need to run.
[Kelsey] I turned around and saw the plume.
It was already taller than White Island.
I knew immediately what was going on.
My brain had just… was in overdrive
and just trying to go as fast as it could to try and work out what to do.
Now behind me,
I hear Kelsey just yell "Run!" and then it was on.
[tense music crescendos]
-[Lauren] Go, go, go! -[Kelsey shouts] Go, go, go!
-[man1] Annie! -[man2] Annie!
-[voices screaming, panicking] -[woman screams] Anybody?!
[Lauren] At that point, I'm frantic. I'm living my worst nightmare.
[dramatic music playing]
[Jesse] We hear Hayden up at the front yelling to run,
at which point panic set in,
and we all just started running for our lives.
[voices yelling]
I had my parents right on my heels.
You could feel the shadow of the explosion rise up behind us.
-[ominous music playing] -[water splashing]
[Matt] We managed to run and take shelter behind
a very large outcropping of rocks just before the ash cloud overtook us.
[rumbling sounds, debris falling]
[voice whimpering]
[Jesse] It was just a black void.
All you could hear was just the sound of rumbling and just the roaring.
At that point, there was, there was nothing I could do.
[ominous music plays]
[Geoff] We were going around to the next bay which was just around the cliff,
and that's when it erupted.
-[woman] Oh my God! -[Geoff slowly] Oh my God! Oh no.
[Geoff] I'm watching it go up and it's beautiful.
The white is pure white, the black is dark.
It kind of is just… an awesome moment.
Within seconds, what was beautiful went eerily sinister.
This ash cloud started rolling down over the cliff.
The crew are realizing what's happened.
The boat has started to speed up significantly.
We're still outside. The crew are calling everybody into the cabin.
[panicked voices]
[man on bullhorn] Okay, everybody inside right now.
[hurried footsteps]
-[man1] Go inside, go inside! -[man2] Go, go go!
[man2] Jesus!
[tense music playing]
[Brian] We were walking towards the coast, and one of my passengers asked me,
"Should we run?" And I looked over my shoulder and
that's when I saw this massive eruption going on.
I remember looking up over my left shoulder
and seeing these projectiles arching towards us as well.
[Brian] To me, it looked like it was going up thousands of feet
and it just wasn't ending.
I looked over at the helicopter,
which would have been about three to four hundred meters away from me.
So I… that's not an option whatsoever.
Option Two was go for some water.
So I told them to run for the water.
[ominous music playing]
Once I got to the pier, I just went and jumped in.
[water gurgling]
I remember hitting the water and just holding my breath as long as I could.
Everything just went black.
-[water sloshing] -[man moaning]
[voices screaming, moaning]
[woman whimpering]
[Brian] I just remember rocks hitting me and pelting my hardhat.
It was the darkest thing I've ever seen in my life,
darker than any night I've ever experienced, just pitch black.
-[voice whimpering] -[water sloshing]
[Kelsey] If you read any literature on pyroclastic flows,
people don't walk out.
I knew the odds of getting out of the back of it, so yeah…
we just had to take shelter and cross our fingers, really.
I held my sunglasses and my gas mask to my face and just didn't let go.
[terrifying rumbling sounds]
-[Kelsey] I hear other people yelling. -[voices shouting]
[Kelsey] It's just horrific.
[Matt] I vividly remember feeling like my back was being burned off.
My arms and legs were burned so badly, so quickly, I never even felt them.
[deep music plays]
[Lauren] I heard Matt say, "I'm sorry, Lauren."
And that broke my heart.
-[haunting music plays] -[muffled voices yelling]
I hold on to his hand because I thought, "For sure,
we're gonna die today and I just want our bodies to be found together."
[Jesse] The smell was overwhelming.
The heat alone was just unbearable.
The superheated steam just um, burning me alive.
I did my absolute best not to breathe at all,
to keep my mouth shut, to keep my eyes closed.
I tried moving into the fetal position, just let my back take brunt of the force.
[haunting music continues]
[Brian] You know, underwater there's no noise.
And you're just waiting for kinda, you know, some light to reappear.
It feels like you just don't know when it's going to end,
because it's just no light, just nothing.
At one point, there was a bit of light. I remember looking at it.
I thought, "Thank God for that."
I started swimming towards it but then it disappeared again.
[waves rippling]
[Lauren] I tell Matt I love him. I yell it every two seconds.
"I love you. I love you. I love you."
And all I can hear is him screaming in pain.
[deep rumbling sounds]
I've never heard him yell like that ever.
The pain was just excruciating. The burns went through all my clothes.
[Matt] Two to three minutes was the entire eruption event.
It was the most terrifying two minutes of my life by far.
I thought "This is it.
This is my last day on this planet. We're going to die on our honeymoon."
-[waves splashing] -[boat engine roaring]
[Geoff] I remember looking out of that window,
and I now can't see the Island at all. It's gone.
[water gurgling]
[Brian] Time for me felt like it was going slower.
And I always said, "Look, if anything ever would happen to me,
I feel like I have lived, you know, for my age, a very good full life,
and I'm satisfied to where I got."
But at that time I realized, "Nope, I'm not ready to let this go just yet.
I think I'm just gonna keep on eh…
trying my best to get out of this situation alive."
[dramatic music plays]
The ash started to settle on the surface of the water,
light started to reappear, and that's when I came back up.
-[tense music plays] -[water sloshing]
I looked behind me towards the Island.
You could see that all the… it was still a fine amount of ash still in the air
kind of falling down onto the island.
-[water sloshing] -[tense music continues]
[Matt] First thing I did was yell out Lauren's name.
[ash falling quietly]
I was in such bad shape, I was afraid she had died.
[voice breaking] So I just remember being so scared. [sobs]
It's okay.
[whispers] It's okay.
[softly] It's okay.
So eventually…
[wind roaring]
[Matt] when I saw her moving, I think she said, "I'm here, I'm here."
That was the biggest relief I've ever felt in my life when she responded.
That was my worst nightmare would be if I survived and she didn't.
That would be worse than anything else.
I wouldn't have been able to live with myself.
[wind blowing]
[Jesse] Once the eruption ceased,
I suppose I was out of shock, I just stood up and I walked a few meters over.
We were a small distance away from the acid lake.
Uh, there was screaming and shouting, um, crying.
I could see some people rolling around on the ground, um… struggling,
in severe pain, which was a horrible sight to see.
[wind blowing]
[Kelsey] Just gradually… it just got less, and then it just stopped and
it was still and it was quiet. And so I thought,
"Well it's now or never."
So got up and started yelling at everyone to follow me
and get up and then started heading back to the jetty.
[dramatic music plays]
[Brian] For me, personally, physically, I was perfectly fine.
But everybody who was on the Island during the eruption, none of them were okay.
Nobody managed to escape that steam.
That steam, you're talking about 200º Celsius.
So that's… you come out looking like a boiled chicken, pretty much,
to put in a rough way.
I just looked down at my arm and
there's just like an entire layer of skin just flopping off.
I mean, I knew I was in bad shape and I knew she was in bad shape.
The only thing on my mind was, "We are getting off this Island now."
[woman yelling] Please run. Run! Please run.
[Lauren] I was really struggling to walk.
I fell a couple of times.
Matt was burnt a lot worse than I was
because he was wearing a lot less clothes than I was, but he was helping me.
[soft music playing]
[Matt] I was running pure adrenaline.
I knew roughly where the jetty was and that was where I was going.
-[waves crashing] -[dramatic music plays]
[Brian] At that point, I could see one of the groups walking towards the pier
and they all started collecting at the pier.
Twenty people or so waiting to be helped.
-[waves crashing] -[ominous music playing]
I didn't know we were going to do this,
but the skipper took the boat back
to where we'd just come from.
And as we headed back there,
we went into the shadow of the ash cloud so it went dark.
-[woman] Oh Jesus Christ. -[voices mutter indistinctly]
[ominous music continues]
[man on walkie-talkie] Hey Whakatāne Coast Guard, Phoenix, do you copy?
[man] I heard the call come through the VHF, of the skipper that I knew,
sounding very distressed,
"There's people on the Island and she's erupting."
[tense music playing]
And you could hear the distress in his voice that this was serious.
-[seagulls squawking] -[telephones ringing]
Instantly, my phones just started ringing.
I then ran across the car park out to the river where you could see White Island.
[ominous music plays]
Sure, enough. It was a big cloud above the Island
and it wasn't stopping.
[ominous music crescendos]
[indistinct chatter]
[woman] Jesus.
[Isaac] It was only about five minutes later
he's asking again where the help was,
so that emphasized the distress that they must have been under.
They're calling for help
and just a couple minutes later, they're asking, "Where is that help?"
[man] Someone came into our office just after 2:00p.m.,
and told us that Whakaari was erupting.
We don't have a direct line of sight to Whakaari, but over the hills,
we could see a fairly impressive cloud.
Another staff member said, "Oh, well. There's the cameras.
Let's go check the cameras."
And we saw what, you know, were basically small black dots,
but we knew that those were people and that's when
for us then it registered that there were people on there.
[tense music playing]
We were working.
We had a deadline.
We started hearing the sirens and we're like, "What's going on?"
[Hazel] I drove down to the Mataatua reserve,
pulled up, ran up, ran across that big grassy patch.
We knew something was wrong.
The plume was bigger than usual.
People were just staring at Whakaari erupting, basically.
[tense music continues]
[Maangi] I was at home and I saw the breaking news.
People were starting to arrive at my house and…
[sighs]
geez, I was still
trying to think myself and get it, you know?
[inhales]
Just wondering…
[sighs]
-[soft music playing] -[seagulls squawking]
[Pouroto] I was actually at a Māori funeral,
and I could feel through the energy
of my speaking there that something wasn't right.
[Pouroto] When I went to look, I could see the smoke coming up,
and it wasn't a normal volcanic cloud above Whakaari,
it was very dark and dense.
When I realized it was real, I actually just broke down and cried.
[ominous music plays]
[Andy] There was a bit of confusion initially in terms of who the tourists
were that went on the Island,
and actually who had taken them there.
But we were certain
that there were people left on the Island at the time of the eruption.
[Isaac] We put the call out for help to the Whakatāne Coast Guard,
and they steamed out towards White Island.
But that's an hour and a half trip by sea.
It was frustrating because we had to, um,
you know, our boats to get that far,
it's always going to be a little bit of wait.
[waves lapping]
And then from Auckland, rescue helicopters also headed out to White Island.
[tense music playing]
[helicopter rotors whipping]
[Andy] There were air ambulance helicopters,
Westpac Rescue helicopters.
They're search-and-rescue experts
with all the equipment and resources necessary,
but they were also probably an hour out from the Island.
[helicopter rotors whirring]
[woman speaks indistinctly]
-[woman] Oh my God there are people there. -[man] Look at the boat.
[woman speaks indistinctly]
[Geoff] When we first got back to the Bay,
we can see everything is just covered in this gray ash.
[rapid footsteps]
Your brain just can't process what you're seeing.
One thing that caught my attention was this helicopter.
[woman] Oh shit. Look at that helicopter. Look.
-[man] Totally spazzed out. -[woman] Yeah.
[Geoff] And I can very clearly see that it is now been pushed backwards.
It's now half off the deck and the rotors are bent.
[tense music plays]
That was the first time that I, uh, really started to think about
the forces of what had actually happened during that eruption.
[indistinct chatter]
[Geoff] I remembered that I took three or four photographs
a few minutes after we'd left the jetty.
If you look real closely,
you can see just these little dots of people right up on the crater.
[Jesse] My group was still near to the crater.
We were all approximately 100 to 150 meters
away from the point of the eruption.
To my left, I could see my parents.
Uh…
[tuts]
um, my father was sitting up, struggling with his gas mask.
I couldn't see my sister at the time.
I could see my mother
um… [tuts]
just lying there. Not really, not really moving.
Or communicating, in any way.
[steam whistling]
[indistinct chatter]
[woman tearfully] There were so many people…
[Geoff] The Island is continuing to blow out steam from the Crater Lake.
And we can see people at the jetty.
[man] I see at least 16.
[woman] Oh God, they're just covered in ash.
[woman tearfully] Oh my God. Oh dear babe.
[Geoff] As soon as we'd seen how bad the eruption was,
it kind of changed our purpose.
This is now about needing to help people.
[tense music plays]
[Brian] At that point, I had to make a decision,
"Do I swim for the boat and make sure I'm safe,
or do I go back and try and help?
[water lapping]
This is a time where you're tested and do the best you can.
I swam back over to the pier and started helping people into rubber boats.
[woman yelling]
[Matt] Everybody is in a frantic race to get onto that Zodiac boat.
We didn't know if that was a pre-eruption before the main event.
So it was just pandemonium on that jetty. We needed to get off this Island.
[emotional woman] I might jump.
-[man] Just wait! -[woman2] Wait! Wait!
[voices] Wait!
[Matt] We tried to get onto the first boat
which actually stopped at the jetty, but people pushed ahead of us,
we couldn't get on it. So then, on the next one, I grabbed the ladder, get on,
then I kind of just flopped into the boat.
[indistinct chatter]
[Lauren] Okay.
[woman grunting, moaning]
-[woman2] Don't touch me, oh. -[woman1 whimpering]
-[woman] Don't touch me. -[voices crying] Oh God.
[Brian] At that stage it was quite a bit of chaos,
you know, so people are trying to jump in,
and you kind of had to hold them back. Pushed them back a bit.
I remember grabbing their hands, helping them into the boat,
and their skin would just come off in your hands, you know.
So this is really like uh… a kind of war movie situation, you know?
[waves lapping on boat]
[woman1 moan]
[woman2] Oh my God.
[woman gasping] Come and…
-[man shouts] Help! -[woman shouts] Help!
[steam whistling]
[Geoff] The inflatable came back to the Phoenix,
and one of the guides got out three or four first aid kits,
and I can see that she's distressed
and I was quite close to her and I said to her,
"Both my daughter and I were first-aid trained.
Can we help?" Her response was, "We need all the help we can get."
So I picked up that first aid kit,
-walked to the back of the boat. -[chilling music plays]
-Those first survivors… -[indistinct background chatter]
…were coming onto the boat.
[distressed voices yelling]
And we set up a a triage,
uh, we're sitting them down. We're just trying to alleviate
the pain of a burn with cool water.
[water trickling]
They were just screaming, "Get me out of here. Get me away from here."
[Geoff yelling] The boats are here, the boats are here now!
-[woman] Oh my God. -[Geoff yelling] The motor's going.
[Brian] They were burned from 45% to 80% or even like full, fully burnt.
So survival rates after 45%, they go down significantly as well.
So you know you're dealing with people who…
who are going to die within the next hour or so making their way back to shore.
[indistinct chatter]
It was a, quite a dire situation.
And at that stage, the boat was at full capacity.
You know, so we had to get back to shore as fast as we could.
[tense music playing]
[boat motor humming]
[waves splashing]
[Mark] I got a call from my wife,
and she said, "There's a massive amount of smoke coming off Whakaari.
Is your brother all right?"
And I said, "Well, I think so." I said, "I haven't heard anything.
But I believe, hey,
Hayden would let us know."
And I looked through the gap out to the ocean there.
And man, she was… there was… a big plume of smoke had come up.
[tense music continues]
[Mark Law] I was driving along the coast,
and that's when I noticed a really, really big plume,
bigger than normal and definitely darker than normal.
[car engine accelerating]
I was looking at it, looking at going, "That's… something happening."
[man] Volcanic Air had a message that there'd been an eruption.
I had actually been able to view on one of the volcano cameras,
located at the coast at Whakatāne.
I think it became pretty apparent that,
you know, sitting back and doing nothing wasn't an option.
We knew that there were people on the Island.
We had the means and the ability to try and help
and it's just the right thing to do, and that's what we did.
[traffic whizzing]
[Mark Law] Like all things, you know,
when it comes down to making decisions and things happening,
you either do or you don't. So I do.
[helicopter engine whining]
I called Tim and I said, "I'm going."
And he said, "Yeah, I'll see you up there."
I called two really experienced people that worked for me.
I said "Go and get a machine out ready to go, fuel it up.
Grab some gear that you think we might need,
grab some extra masks and some water."
[rotors humming]
And then they took off. A few moments later, I lifted.
[rotor blades buzzing, engine humming]
[Mark Law] You could hear all the chit-chat going on on the radio
and that's when I heard John Funnell's voice.
[soft music playing]
[man] I was actually
doing some flying at Whakatāne in my airplane,
just testing out some new equipment.
[plane engine buzzing]
That's when I heard Mark Law on the radio, calling for a fixed-wing.
[plane engine whining]
[Mark Law] We needed someone circling overhead who was like a relay station
or a means of passing communication,
because there is very limited cell phone coverage on White Island.
[rotors buzzing]
There's no fixed radio or any radio system there.
[John] I volunteered my help.
I had plenty of fuel, I had the ability to get out there.
And uh, never gave it a thought about not going.
-[tense music playing] -[plane buzzing]
[dramatic music crescendos]
[waves splashing]
[Brian] All the victims were kind of laid around the boat,
uh, at the front, at the back.
We all kind of fell into our own roles, assisting people.
I think every one of us on that boat did help quite a bit.
-[wind whistling] -[indistinct chatter]
[Geoff] So we're dealing with exposed hands,
legs, faces, but the burns were far worse than that.
[waves crashing]
I remember that being a key moment where I thought
"What would burn you through an item of clothing,
but didn't burn the clothing?"
I realized actually that the steam caused injuries far worse, that we couldn't see.
[tense music playing]
[Matt] There wasn't room for us in the cabin.
We actually ended up riding on the bow of the ship,
getting splashed by salt water in the cold air and the sun.
It was a horrific ride back.
[water sloshing]
[indistinct chatter]
[Kelsey] I just keep looking up at the horizon thinking,
"How are we not there yet? Surely it's been hours." [chuckles]
But yeah, I mean you could hear the boat at just total capacity,
and so yeah it was like, "Keep going boat. Keep going Phoenix."
[waves splashing]
[Isaac] The Phoenix had about 26 injured
or critically injured people on board.
That's when I thought,
"Shit, there's a whole boatload of people that are still to be accounted for."
[Jesse] I've neared the acid lake.
I was just sitting there rocking… rocking in pain.
Everything, my whole body was just tingling. I had, I could see my arms,
uh, covered in gray ash.
And I was thinking, "I'm gonna die here. I'm gonna die. That's going to be it."
I was sat in the middle of about half a dozen or more people.
People who were dead or dying.
In that time, you could hear the voices slowly start to dissipate.
The screaming becoming less frequent.
The crying becoming more quiet.
I knew you've got your highest likelihood of surviving
any kind of trauma if you've received medical assistance within the first hour.
After sitting there for half an hour,
I came to the realization that no one was coming.
And then something just clicked.
Just get up and go and go find some help.
[steam whistling]
Standing up and walking away from my parents,
that was… I would say, the toughest thing I've ever had to do.
[steam whistling]
But once I did find that strength, it was less so a walk,
but more of a stumble. A forceful pushing myself just to keep on walking.
[dramatic music playing]
[boat motor humming]
[Brian] Fifteen to twenty minutes into the trip back,
that's where people started kind of screaming out,
just saying "I need water! I need water!"
[waves splashing]
[Geoff] We just did what we could with Matt and Lauren.
And these guys at the front.
What was in my first aid kit
was of far less value than the container.
I tipped everything out of my first aid kit and started to fill it with water.
We just start to pour cold water just over their hands,
over what we can see that is exposed.
[Brian] Everybody was screaming for relief in a certain way.
I think we were all just doing what we could at that time.
I was told a few times,
you know, "You need to sit down.
You probably inhaled a lot of ash and stuff."
But um… it's very hard to sit down in a situation like that,
you know. So you just keep going.
-[haunting music plays] -[waves splashing]
[Lauren] They wrapped me in a blanket to keep me warm,
and then Geoff Hopkins even, you know, kept his body to keep me warm.
[waves crashing]
[Geoff] She tells me, "I'm… I'm not going to make it.
I'm not going to make it."
[water splashing]
"Yes, you are. This isn't the end of your life.
You have got many years ahead of you."
She asked if I would just hold her hand,
and I couldn't, hold it, because it was just so badly burnt.
[Lauren] I'm not normally a religious person, but I remember praying to God,
that He would just end my life,
just so I wasn't in pain anymore. And that's where I lost consciousness.
[tense music plays]
[Jesse] It was very difficult for me to breathe.
My legs felt heavy.
There was a lot of effort every single step uh, to keep going forward.
I recall Hayden previously telling us in the safety brief to try
to follow the stream back to the beach.
I rounded a bend where I had to cross the stream.
It was very hot, it was burning, and I had to jump across it.
And all I wanted to do was just to sit down again.
But I knew if I take a break and sit down, I'm not going to get back up again.
-[steam whistling] -[tense music plays]
[Mark Law] As I got to the Island, you could see
it was still ashing quite significantly.
Quite a column of ash and steam.
So I thought, "Well okay. I'll have a look around."
[helicopter engine whirring]
So I flew into the crater.
I remember looking down and going, "Gosh, that looks like a person.
That looks like more.
No, it looks like a guy sitting."
And then I thought, "Hang on, there's a lot more."
[engine buzzing]
[John] I was trying to fly with both radios and the cell phone.
I was keeping upwind of the ash cloud, and to one side,
just going backwards and forwards.
I knew that we had to get information out to the authorities
as to how bad the situation was so they could plan
and put more resources in if needed.
[John] I said to Mark, "We need to know the number of dead
and the number of injured."
[Mark Law] I tried to land in a couple places too dusty,
and so I found one of my wood helipads,
and zeroed in onto that,
and just flew straight into it, into sort of like a brown-out.
[blades buzzing]
[Mark Law] I left the aircraft running. Grabbed my mask and jumped out.
I then picked up some footprints down the creek.
-[engine whining] -[dramatic music playing]
[Tim] And I was focused on planning my approach into the Island,
you know, it was really dusty.
So, we had to be pretty committed to our landing.
[engine whirring]
I initially forgot my mask and I didn't get very far from the helicopter
before I realized it was hard breathing out there.
It was really hard. You had to have a mask on.
[dramatic music playing]
[Tim] Saw one person, then I saw another.
Saw a bunch just sort of further up.
Conscious, just, but barely conscious.
Some people crying out louder than others.
[John] I could form a picture of what was happening down there.
[engine buzzing]
We just kept finding more and more people all the time that needed help,
and it was just… it became very obvious very quickly to me,
it was a major calamity we had on our hands.
[tense music playing]
[Mark Law] I called the guys in.
I gave them a brief. I said, "Look, there's a lot of people here.
Quite a few of them are dead.
There's a lot alive and we're going to go to all of them."
[tense music playing]
[John] We were passing the information to air traffic control.
[engine buzzing]
So that they would direct the two Westpac Rescue helicopters into White Island.
[tense music plays]
I said, "We've got people in extreme pain here
and we've got no medical equipment.
We've got no helicopters with stretchers.
We need you guys here on the Island."
[plane engine buzzing]
They responded straight away.
"We'll come direct."
So I called Mark up and said "Help's on its way.
It… it will get better soon."
[Mark Law] So at that time, we just started working through
all the folks on the ground,
really just clearing their airways,
clearing their noses, putting some people in recovery positions,
putting gas masks back on people,
and dabbing water where we could.
And just continuing until we got further assistance.
The ash was still falling on us.
And then every now and again we'd hear
big, you know, booms as stuff was going on in the plume.
Anyway, cracked on.
[tense music plays]
[water sloshing, boat engine whining]
[Isaac] The Whakatāne Coast Guard boat met the Phoenix just about halfway
back to Whakatāne, pulled up alongside.
The skipper advised that they had multiple critical people on board.
So it was elected to put the ambulance crew
on board the Phoenix to assist with their care for their return trip.
Paramedics jump on and then suddenly we were away again.
[boat engine accelerates, water sloshing]
My expectation was, "Ah, the paramedics will take over."
But the reality was even though they had a big kit,
there wasn't anything in that kit that was going to help.
And really the paramedic just said, "Just keep doing what you're doing.
Just keep reassuring. There's nothing else we can do."
[engine buzzing]
[sirens blaring]
[Hazel] People had started gathering down on the waterfront there,
along the river mouth.
I could see lots of ambulances, police.
Um… it felt like every person
who was a frontline emergency staff member was there.
[indistinct chatter]
[Isaac] Once we knew boats were on the way back,
that's when I'd go and clear the wharf for them
because I knew they'd be heading through the first wharf and unloading.
[indistinct chatter]
[man] We were just around trying to establish
where we would set up the triaging for the people coming off the boats.
[Mark] I had a little bit of denial, a little bit of disbelief.
I thought, "You know what, I probably should just give Hayden a quick call."
And I tried ringing him and I got no reply.
I guess being a small community,
your network of connections spreads a little bit wider.
And so my wife rang our family friend.
And asked if everything was all right,
and she said, "It's not good."
[car engine roaring]
I picked the kids up and raced into town.
[Maangi] We drove down to Whakatāne,
straight to White Island Tours.
[indistinct chatter]
We just saw the ambulances and um… police everywhere.
They had the whole family around, um… we were all, you know, just waiting for news.
[waves rippling]
[ominous music plays]
[Jesse] I made it to a rocky outcrop,
and you could see the view of the water, and I was like,
"I made it," and then directly in front of me
was one of the crew members from the Phoenix.
-He had the radio to his mouth… -[indistinct radio chatter]
…saying something like "That's it, it's… might be time to wrap up."
[indistinct radio chatter]
As soon as I heard that I just yelled with whatever energy that I had left.
It was more like a scream.
And then he turned around with a wide-eyed expression,
like the shock on his face saying like, "Holy, holy crap."
And he straight away just said, "I have a survivor.
Um… let's go."
And then when I flung my arms around his shoulders,
I just remember saying "Uh, my family."
All I wanted to do the whole time was just get him to allow me to take him back
to where everyone else was.
[waves crashing]
He was like, "It'll be okay. We're going to get you back to the ship now."
So we boarded the Te Puia and then departed.
[boat engine buzzing, water sloshing]
-[tense music plays] -[plane engine buzzing]]
[John] I'd lost track of all time because I was just so busy
trying to communicate with air traffic control.
"We urgently need help out here. We just keep finding more survivors
and needing more help."
[engine whining]
They called back, probably five minutes later,
and said "We've been directed by the Communication Center
that we're not to go to the Island."
[plane engine buzzing]
[Andy] The decision was made at a higher level,
that there'd been a no-fly zone put in place.
And this was due to the dangerous environment there around the Island.
Quite toxic, quite acidic, and quite dangerous for any rescuers.
And there was a high risk of another explosion.
[tense music notes play]
[man] At this stage, it is too dangerous
for police and rescue services to go to the Island.
The Island is currently covered in ash and volcanic material.
We are taking expert advice with regards to safety of any rescue attempt.
-[plane engine buzzing] -[tense music plays]
[John] I called Mark's team back on the ground again, and said,
"You just have to do what you can with what you've got.
You're on your own."
[tense music plays]
[Mark Law] He goes, "No, they're not coming."
So I said, "Oh yeah? Uh, okay."
Then we essentially just moved into Plan B,
and that was, "We're going to do it ourselves."
[John] Mark and his team were facing a horrendous situation
with multiple patients with severe scalding burns.
[ominous music plays]
This is the stuff that nightmares are made out of.
[ominous music continues]
[Mark Law] At that stage, we got everyone together
and it became a combined effort to identify the survivors,
and start to get them onboard the aircraft.
It was just, "Let's get everyone who's still living off this island."
Once we started to move people, we realized how severe the injuries were.
Whole legs were just, you know, just blistered and trying to pick people up,
and skin was coming off in our hands,
and all over our clothing and things like that.
But you can't, you can't sit there and dwell about it.
You eventually just got to get on and talk to people,
tell them what you're going to do.
"Okay, right, you're going in the helicopter.
We're gonna lift you up here.
You'll be 20 minutes away to a hospital."
You know, when people are down and out and nearly gone,
words are tremendously powerful.
[rotor blades whirring]
And we didn't have time to pull up our seats.
We had to, you know, lift people up right up high.
[helicopter rotor buzzing]
We used some seat belts, just to hold people up more than hold them in.
We finally got five people into the first helicopter, and then he left.
So, we loaded my one up and then I lifted off.
[Tim] I had one on board the aircraft,
and then we got one more on board.
We couldn't get any more in the back of my aircraft.
So then I got airborne with those two.
I just remember thinking that I wish this helicopter would fly faster,
and really my only thoughts flying back were
with the people in the back of my aircraft.
You know, we gave them water to try and uh, assist.
And to, you know… but yeah.
[tense music playing]
[rotor blades whirring]
[John] That was a horrendous, huge effort on their part.
There was little more they could have done.
There were no more survivors left.
The only people left on the island were the deceased.
-[rotor blades whirring] -[dramatic music playing]
[Geoff] As we approach land, Mike the skipper said,
"Hold on because we're just going to go through this at full speed."
[soft music playing]
[Jason] That boat did not stop when it went over that bar.
It just carried at that speed up the river,
which we had never seen before.
I remember thinking that, "You know, this boat is coming at speed for a reason."
[waves crashing]
[Geoff] There was a line of paramedics, a line of police,
a line of fire fighters,
and they were just looking wide-eyed
trying to take in what they could see.
I guess almost with shock.
[police sirens blaring]
[Jason] That's when we got our first visual on the casualties.
I mean, I'd never seen… a human body
um, in an eruption, so I wasn't, you know, exactly sure…
what it would look like.
[sirens blaring]
[Jesse] I remember [sighs]
a police officer I'd seen coming in, with his hands full of Glad Wrap.
They're trying to get all the stuff that they could
from the local stores to cover the burn wounds.
[Matt] I heard Geoff yell to the paramedics,
"Get her off first. She's in critical condition."
[Geoff] Matt walked off the boat which just amazed me.
I was very clear that I did not want to be separated from her,
so they actually let me ride in the ambulance with her to the hospital.
[Jason] Where I was, the three people I had, um…
[eerie music plays]
There was this moment when, um, one of them, um, just slumped,
slumped on me.
And um…
and I just think at that point in time,
I just had my own little moment.
-[seagulls squawk] -[eerie music continues]
Um, I remember standing up, taking a breath,
turning around, and facing the other side of the river,
and then turning back
and just having total clarity of what we needed to do.
[Kelsey] There was fire and ambulance, and police.
And somehow in that whole crowd,
I managed to spot my mom and sister,
and I remember thinking, "They can't see me like this."
[wistful music playing]
So I got up and I couldn't actually straighten out my limbs.
And so I kind of had to walk a bit odd to the side of the boat…
-[engine humming] -[seagulls squawking]
Beelined it straight for the ambulance,
'cause I didn't want them to see me in that much pain.
[news reporter] The first casualties from a volcanic eruption
being stretchered from White Island clearly suffering burns.
Of course, there's still a number unaccounted for.
Twenty of them we believe are seriously injured.
[wistful music continues]
[Mark] I race into town.
Um…
My mom and dad were there.
One of the skippers said, [in choked voice] "Hayden didn't come off.
He isn't… hasn't come off."
But he wasn't 100 percent sure where he was.
And we said… [stuttering] "But no, it's… it can't be. How?"
[sobs]
He said he didn't know whether he's on a helicopter or not. He wasn't sure.
[Mark Law] We had it tapped out, you know, it was going as fast as we could,
probably 120 knots.
There were some instructions coming from the Rescue Services,
that we were to fly to the airport with all the patients,
but I said "No, we're not doing that.
We're going to go to hospital."
It's just straight out of time, wasted time.
I felt that Rescue Services, you know, they'd already let us down.
So you know, the hospital wasn't going to let us down because we'd just arrive.
[ambulance sirens blaring]
They were going to go into that hospital
and you had lots of people that could take care of them quickly.
[sirens continue blaring]
[Matt] I had the thought, "My mom's going to wonder what happened
to us when we just stop communicating with her at all."
And I still had my cell phone with me. So, I asked one of the people nearby
to call my mom. I couldn't work it because it was a fingerprint unlock
and I didn't have any fingerprints left.
[wistful music playing]
[Matt] Hi Mom, it's me. I just wanted to let you know,
and this isn't a joke,
the volcano actually erupted while we were on the Island,
so we're at a hospital in New Zealand.
I don't know how long I'll be here,
but I'll try and keep you updated as best I can.
[Matt] At that point, we got separated.
I didn't really understand how bad of shape I was in.
I certainly didn't expect I was going to be in a coma in…
in New Zealand for over a month or more.
They cut off my wedding ring and I remember begging them
not to do that because I had just gotten married.
I was just heartbroken and… and I wouldn't look when they cut it off.
[raindrops pattering]
[Geoff] You go from a situation where
there's urgency to suddenly when the urgency stops.
And it's not until that moment then,
when suddenly what we were doing now had been passed
to a professional,
did we start to process what had just happened.
I called my wife.
As soon as she answered, I couldn't talk.
You know the tears just started [stuttering] to come out of nowhere.
[Brian] Everybody was very,
you know, emotionally and physically wrecked at that stage.
Jolene, my girlfriend, came over to pick me up, and I was able to,
you know, hug her and…
that's, I think, when emotionally everything hit me for the first time.
[Maangi] We heard from the police there were eight still on the Island
on Whakaari, passed away.
Tipene was one of them.
I dropped on the floor.
I couldn't believe, I couldn't believe that I was hearing, you know…
[sighs]
Parekura we call it. Tragedy.
[sobs]
[melancholic music playing]
[Mark] Once we got the word that the last helicopter landed,
you know, I actually rang Mark Law for an update of what was happening.
[Mark Law stuttering] I just… I just, you know, I felt as friends,
you know, like uh… we just have to let them know,
you know, as soon as possible.
You know, "I was there with Hayden and he definitely passed away."
He had seen Hayden, and um…
[exhales, sniffs]
He'd seen him on the Island, and said that he hadn't made it.
[wind blowing softly]
[Mark] Mark talked about seeing footsteps in the ash.
And they believe that it was Hayden and Tipene that had moved about
and helped the final few, I guess,
be comfortable in their last moments.
I know both Tipene and Hayden put everybody first, before themselves.
But he wasn't coming home.
[melancholic music continues]
[woman] It is now clear that there were two groups on the Island,
those who were able to be evacuated
and those who were close to the eruption.
To those who have lost or are missing family and friends,
we share in your unfathomable grief at this moment in time and in your sorrow.
Your loved one stood alongside Kiwis
who were hosting you here and we grieve with you and we grieve with them.
[reporter1] The official death toll from that volcanic eruption
in New Zealand now stands at eight.
[reporter2] Nine of them have now been confirmed dead…
-the latest, teenage brothers… -[reporter3 speaks in Mandarin]
[reporter4] Death toll from Monday's disaster has now risen to at least 15.
-[reporter5 French] Sixteen people died… -[reporter6 speaks in Māori]
[reporter7] He was a dedicated public servant…
[reporter8 speaks in Samoan]
[reporter9] Among the 21 victims were her husband, Gavin,
and 15-year old daughter, Zoe.
[Kelsey] I didn't really know what had happened for three weeks.
No one had told me still,
but a friend of mine came to visit me on the Burns Unit,
and I'm like "Oh, how's Hayden? Like I'm surprised I haven't seen Hayden."
And she just like looked at my family and yeah, they all burst into tears.
[melancholic music plays]
[sobs, sighs]
And yeah, that's how I found out.
[melancholic music plays]
[Jesse] I woke up on the 17th of December.
[melancholic music continues]
My grandfather was the one that… broke the terrible news to me.
My father was rushed by Mark Law straight to the hospital,
where unfortunately he, uh, succumbed to his injuries.
Uh, my mother did pass away on the Island,
and she was uh…
recovered by the New Zealand Army a few days later.
And they're not sure where my sister was or what had happened to her body.
[Pouroto] When the ancestor, Tītahi, did die,
it is said in our folklore, that his spirit,
it had transformed as one of the guardians of the ocean today.
The dead themselves, they too have become similar to the ancestor Tītahi.
Whakaari has given her sanction, her consent,
to have them there as guardians, kaitiaki, forevermore.
They take their place in time where they will never be forgotten.
[melancholic music continues]
[melancholic music fades away]
[rain splattering]
[eerie music plays]
[Lauren] Some days are good, some days aren't,
if you want me to be 100% honest with you.
I know people are looking at me; I know people are looking at my hands.
Um… I don't like it.
I always feel like I have to explain ahead of time
what these are from. [laughs drily]
I have days where it's easier than others.
[Matt] All right. So brussels sprouts on one side,
apples and sweet potatoes on the other.
[Lauren] My husband and I are training to run in a half marathon,
so some days when I'm focused on things like running,
it's good, and yes, I can see my future.
I can see happy days, and I can look past the volcano.
But, um… [sighs] Yeah, some days are really hard.
Yeah.
[metallic scraping sound]
[Matt] My ring finger doesn't really work all that well,
and that really messes with me on my dominant hand.
At this point, we're still getting a surgery a month.
The timeline with this recovery is just so, so, so long.
The eruptions was two minutes, but the consequences are multiple years.
I understand nobody controls nature,
but you have to at least give me a chance to make an informed decision.
Had I known what I know now,
there's zero percent chance we would have ever set foot on the island. Zero.
[Kelsey] Yes, so I was burnt from my boot line
to my shorts line and the back of my legs,
back to my knees was actually spared because being crouched down,
it actually protected the backs of my knees which was good.
I knew what could happen out there.
But you don't believe it will happen to you.
This hasn't changed my opinion on how I will interact with nature.
I mean, I won't live in a padded room
because what kind of life is that?
I guess I know that I can get through anything now,
so I mean that's worth something.
Maybe not to anyone else but to me, it's worth something. [laughs]
[Jesse] Throughout my whole stay in hospital,
I made it a really strict point to take progress photos every other day,
so I can look back at them and see how far I've come.
I've had 17 surgeries.
I was told that I would be spending a year in hospital.
But I'm pretty proud to say that my total stay was
just under two months.
I'm a stubborn bastard.
I refuse to give up. I'll just keep on trying and trying.
Uh, and I refuse to quit, no matter how hard it gets.
[soft music playing]
I still love a risk.
But calculated risk I think is the word that needs to be said.
[wistful music playing]
They shouldn't have been there.
Should never go there.
I can see Whakaari from my home.
I see it from every room in my home. Yeah.
The less I see of it the better, to tell you the truth.
So you just shut the curtain, let it be.
Say a little prayer.
Then you do the same thing the next day. And the next day and…
yeah.
[Mark] I think, you know, in some ways
we understood the Island,
that it's an unknown outcome.
Mother Nature does what she wants to do.
But there's also human nature.
And in the face of adversity,
it's human nature to go and help.
Ordinary people willing to give their own lives to help others.
That's what makes people… the good people in the world who they are.
[wistful music continues]
[Kelsey] A lot of positive has come from such a horrific event.
The Community Support has been quite overwhelming.
I have friendships that I wouldn't trade for the world.
You have to take something positive
because otherwise that cloud will just follow you forever.
[repeated thuds of blows]
[Jesse] My gym, and my work colleagues,
my friends, my family,
are who all push me to keep on going.
They've given me the drive to keep working hard.
Especially my grandfather, my rock.
He's been with me from the very beginning.
And I would never have been able to make it this far without his love and support.
[wistful music continues]
[Matt I have a perfect unburnt spot on my wrist.
That is the exact outline of where her hand was.
[Lauren] It was like this.
Yep, that's why this hand is much better than this hand.
Like I can't even make a fist in this hand, and this hand,
I can make a fist fully.
I will always be by his side. Always.
I just love him so much and this has made us even closer, I feel like.
[wistful music continues]
[waves rippling gently]
[Mark] I try to get out there every couple of months and go and say, "Hi."
And Hayden's favorite drink was a Steinlager beer,
you know, a good Kiwi beer.
And we take a dozen out with us and we sit out there and whoever's with us,
we have a couple of drinks and we always pour one in the ocean, you know?
As much as I hate wasting one, [chuckling] we always pour one in
and give him a drink. [chuckles]
So you do, you look for little moments and you look for signs,
I guess to find your ways of moving forward.
In the face of Mother Nature, and all that she can throw at us,
we've still got to remember that as humans, we'll always have each other.
[wistful music fades]
["Whakaaria Mai (How Great Thou Art)" hymn sung in Māori by TEEKS & Hollie Smith]
♪ The works Thy Hand hath made ♪
♪ I see the stars ♪
♪ I hear the mighty ♪
♪ Thunder ♪
♪ Thy power throughout ♪
♪ The universe displayed ♪
♪ Then sings my soul ♪
♪ My Savior God, to Thee ♪
♪ How great Thou art! ♪
♪ Then sings my soul ♪
♪ My Savior God, to Thee ♪
♪ How great Thou art! ♪
[man and woman singing in harmony]
[chorus in English] ♪ How great Thou art! ♪
[man in Māori] ♪ Then sings my soul My Savior God, to Thee ♪
[chorus in English] ♪ How great! ♪
-[woman in English] ♪ How great! ♪ -[man in English] ♪ How great! ♪
-[woman in English] ♪ How great Thou ♪ -[chorus in harmony] ♪ Art! ♪
Subtitle translation by: Ayolope Koiki