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Daily Mirror
5 days ago
- Health
- Daily Mirror
British medic's heartbreaking two words to dead Gaza child, 9, while zipping up their body bag
NHS paramedic Sam Sears recently returned from a three-week stint in the stricken Gaza enclave working at a charity's field hospitals, and now shares his harrowing tale For British medic Sam Sears, the episode is one he will never forget. Only days into working in Gaza, he was tasked with an act underlining war's grim reality — putting children into body bags. Though, of course, he bore no blame, Sam poignantly told one lifeless lad as he zipped up the bag: 'I'm sorry.' The brave NHS paramedic, 44, recently returned from a three-week stint in the stricken enclave for charity UK-Med. The British non-profit runs two field hospitals there where Sam, from Northamptonshire, split his time. After haunting pictures of emaciated children have emerged from the strip, he has offered a harrowing account of the experience. Drones and gunfire provided a chilling soundtrack for his days – and the flow of horrific injuries was constant. International pressure has been building on Israel to end the conflict, with PM Keir Starmer highlighting the 'terrible suffering' Palestinians have endured. But fighting has yet to stop; nor has the hunger. Famine, experts say, is underway. And just this week, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to take control of all of Gaza. More bloodshed will inevitably follow. Just a few days into Sam's deployment, he had to contend with a 'mass casualty incident'. Two boys, one aged nine, the other 10 or 11, were killed – and a third, about only eight, was in a dire state with shrapnel injuries. 'I was tasked with going into the resus area to support in there,' Sam, who back in the UK works for East Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust, recalled. 'There's three beds and when I went in on two of the beds there were two deceased children and on the other bed there was another child critically unwell.' His job was an unenviable one; to confirm their deaths and put them into body bags to be taken to the mortuary. 'It was me and an interpreter,' Sam said. 'It was difficult because we knew we had to be quick to get them away to make room. But we were being very dignified, the way we were handling. Even in the UK when we declare someone deceased and then we make them at peace for the family to see them, I do sometimes say something to them. 'But I definitely said to this young nine-year-old, 'I'm sorry', as I zipped up the body bag.' Asked why they were the words that came to him, Sam explained: 'I think just because his demise, his end, came because of this whole war going on and he didn't deserve it.' The incident is one he will never forget 'without a doubt', he said. Sam, a veteran of deployments to Ukraine, Rwanda, Turkey and Sierra Leone for UK-Med, is no stranger to working in tough environments. But Gaza was so much worse than he anticipated – 'the destruction and devastation is just unprecedented'. 'Malnutrition is no longer a future threat. It is a present killer,' Sam said. 'One of my patients was a 16-year-old girl named Noor. She has diabetes but was half the expected weight for her age. 'Her father told me they sometimes went two days without food or clean water. Noor was lucky to reach us in time, but many others do not. Even those who survive the hunger live in constant fear. There is no safe space. The sound of shelling and airstrikes is relentless. Children cry not just from pain or hunger, but from sheer terror. The health system in Gaza has been battered. Hospitals are under-resourced, understaffed, and overwhelmed. Supplies are critically low. Electricity is intermittent. Colleagues I worked with in Gaza – brave, committed local medics – have lost homes, family members, and friends, yet they keep working. Their resilience is extraordinary, but it is not infinite.' UK-Med's field hospitals are in Al-Mawasi, in the south, which includes an emergency department, and Deir El Balah in central Gaza. The Manchester charity has been backed with £19million of funding by the UK government for its work in the strip. The Manchester charity has been backed with £19million of funding by the UK government for its work in Gaza. UK-Med has carried out over 600,000 patient consultations since starting work in the strip in January 2024. It is approaching two years since Hamas' October 7 attack on Israel left about 1,200 dead and saw 251 hostages taken, sparking the war. Though some hostages have been released, nearly 50 are still said to be held – just over half of whom are believed to be dead. More than 60,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's retaliatory military offensive, according to Gaza's health ministry. And hunger looms over the crippled territory. Only last month, the UN said nearly one in three people in the enclave are going days without eating. Though it has yet to be officially declared, UN-backed global food security experts have warned 'the worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out'. Sam added: 'This crisis requires a sustained ceasefire, not a fragile truce. It requires a permanent end to hostilities, full protection for civilians and health workers, and unhindered humanitarian access to food, fuel, and medical supplies. The longer the world waits, the higher the cost. Hunger and despair are spreading faster than aid can reach. If the conflict doesn't kill, starvation might. As I return to my life in the UK, I carry the weight of what I saw. The people of Gaza don't get to leave. They have no escape from the hunger, the fear, the trauma. They need more than our sympathy. They need our action.' Heartbreaking images from UK-Med's Al-Mawasi hospital this week paint a continuing picture of desperation. One shows the hand of a malnourished girl, with stick-thin arms, resting on her dad's. The child, Amira, visited the charity's nutrition clinic earlier this week with dad Abdulkader, mum Mona and brother Mohammed. In another picture, anguish was written on little Mohammed's face as his mother held him. According to UK-Med, there are four children in the family in total – all are suffering malnutrition. The only way for Abdulkader to get his daughter to stop writhing was to say 'milk, milk' – despite not having any. Another desperate story in a place where hope feels in short supply. But though tragic, Sam's tale of the two dead children offers a silver lining – the third boy survived after undergoing surgery. 'The next day, I found out he was sat up in bed and expected to make a full recovery,' Sam explained. 'It shows why we have to do what we do.'
Saudi Gazette
11-03-2025
- Health
- Saudi Gazette
Cargo vessel that collided with US military tanker was carrying sodium cyanide
LONDON — A cargo ship that smashed into a US military chartered oil tanker off the northeast coast of England on Monday was carrying sodium cyanide, according to the maritime intelligence company and shipping journal Lloyd's List. The collision sparked a huge fire, a dramatic rescue effort and fears of environmental damage. Just before 10 a.m. local time (6 a.m. ET), a Portuguese-flagged container ship called the Solong careered into the oil tanker, called the Stena Immaculate, which was at anchor in the North Sea about 10 miles off the English coastline, according to the ship tracking tool VesselFinder. All but one of the 14 crew members on board the Solong were brought safely to shore, the vessel's owner Ernst Russ said in a statement Monday evening. By Monday night local time, an 'extensive' search for the missing crew member had ended, the British coast guard said. The missing person had not been found. Ernst Russ also said in its statement that both vessels 'sustained significant damage in the impact of the collision and the subsequent fire.' Crowley, a US logistics firm that manages the Stena Immaculate, confirmed that all members of its crew were safe. A total of 36 patients were treated by ambulance services after reaching the shore, according to Alastair Smith, Head of Operations for Lincolnshire at East Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust. The Solong was carrying 'an unknown quantity of alcohol and 15 containers of sodium cyanide,' Lloyd's List reported. It is unclear whether the cyanide has entered the water. Sodium cyanide, according to the US' National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, releases a highly toxic hydrogen cyanide gas that interferes with the body's ability to use oxygen. According to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), sodium cyanide can also turn into hydrogen cyanide on contact with water. Videos of the incident showed black plumes of smoke billowing into the sky and at least one of the vessels engulfed by flames. The Stena Immaculate was carrying military jet fuel and marine diesel on its way to Killingholme, England, according to a spokesperson for the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), an agency of the US' Department of Defense. The tanker was on a long-term charter with DLA Energy, which manages and distributes petroleum and fuel products. It was scheduled to re-supply fuel to Killingholme before reloading and delivering fuel to locations in the Mediterranean, the spokesperson said. The Solong left the Scottish port of Grangemouth on Sunday evening and was headed for Rotterdam, the Netherlands, at the time of the collision, according to VesselFinder. Martyn Boyers, chief executive of the nearby Port of Grimsby East, told CNN earlier Monday that he had seen people being brought ashore and that ambulances had been waiting to receive them. It was not immediately clear how or why the collision occurred. 'It seems a mystery, really, because all the vessels now have very highly sophisticated technical equipment to plot courses and to look at any obstacles or anything they've got to avoid,' Boyers said. 'It's difficult to actually suggest what went on, other than the fact it should never have happened,' he added. The port chief said the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) and the Marine and Coastguard Agency (MCA) would likely investigate what went wrong. 'How did that vessel continue plowing into the berth vessel? There must have been some warning signs. They must have been able to detect it on the radar,' Boyers said to CNN. Crowley said there were 'multiple explosions on board' after the Stena Immaculate was struck by the Solong, adding that it had 'sustained a ruptured cargo tank containing Jet-A1 fuel' due to the collision. It had anchored off the English coast after leaving the Greek port of Agioi Theodoroi last month, according to VesselFinder. A flurry of high-speed ships and tugboats were seen moving toward the site of the collision at the time of the coastguard's rescue operation, real-time data from VesselFinder showed. Experts say jet fuel spills tend to impact the environment less than crude oil spills. Bacteria can degrade the jet fuel molecules more quickly, leading to faster biodegradation, Mark Sephton, Professor of Organic Geochemistry at Imperial College London said. 'Whilst the images look worrying, from the perspective of the impact to the aquatic environment it's less of a concern than if this had been crude oil because most of the jet fuel will evaporate very quickly,' Dr Mark Hartl, a marine ecotoxicologist from the Centre for Marine Biodiversity & Biotechnology at Heriot-Watt University, added. But Greenpeace UK said in a statement that it had 'serious concerns' that the cargo onboard the vessels, as well as the fuel inside them, could pose a threat to marine life. 'As more information emerges about what the ships were carrying, we are extremely concerned about the multiple toxic hazards these chemicals could pose to marine life. The jet fuel that entered the water close to a breeding ground for harbor porpoises is toxic to fish and other sea creatures,' Dr. Paul Johnston, a senior scientist at the Greenpeace Research Laboratories at Exeter University, said. Johnston urged authorities to put measures in place to contain the release of any toxic substances from the vessels. 'We must hope an environmental disaster can be averted,' he said. — CNN
