In one harrowing incident an Australian doctor visiting Christchurch for a medical conference amputated a trapped man's legs using only a hacksaw and a Leatherman multi-purpose tool while in another a woman held her dead brother's hand as she cried for help from under the debris.
The woman doctor was chosen for the grim task of cutting off the legs of the man who was trapped in the collapsed Pyne Gould building because she was the smallest of the medical team trying to extricate him from a tight space, the New Zealand Herald reported today.
As an anaesthetist gave the man morphine and ketamine, she used the multi-purpose tool with a fold-out blade and a hacksaw offered by a tradesman, to amputate both the legs.
Brisbane urologist Dr Stuart Philip said his Melbourne colleague saved the man's life.
He said she was too traumatised to talk about the amputation.
He said the victim was not under a full general anaesthetic when his legs were amputated but he was heavily sedated.
He said there was only room for the anaesthetist and the woman doctor in the space where the man's legs were trapped by a heavy concrete beam.
Rescuers told of the heart-wrenching cries of a woman who held her dead brother's hand as she called for help from under the debris of the collapsed Iconic Bar in Manchester Street.
Jamie Gilbert, 22, a father of two, was dead when rescuers freed his sister, Amy and then recovered his body.
The siblings had been working at the bar for three weeks after it was bought by family friends.
