Tampa canine rescue teams return from Haitian 'war zone'

A pleading voice echoed underneath the rubble.

It was hard to gauge distance and direction in the ruins of the collapsed market, so Tampa Fire Rescue Lt. Roger Picard unleashed his search dog Party Girl.

The black Labrador picked up the scent of the Haitian earthquake survivor, a 7-year-old girl, and alerted rescuers to her location. It took 40 hours to dig her out and save her life.

"I can't forget the sound of her voice," Picard said. "I still get chills when I think of the sounds that she made."

Picard and his dogs, Party Girl and Cinder, and Lt. Brian Smithey and his dogs, Doak and Powder, returned to Tampa on Monday night after a 10-day deployment to Haiti aiding earthquake relief efforts.

The 7-year-old girl was one of seven survivors found alive by the urban search-and-rescue teams from Florida. The efforts of Picard, Smithey and their canines were recognized this morning by city officials during a ceremony at Tampa Fire Rescue's downtown headquarters.

"When people are suffering, we have the capability to send our top experts and help save lives," Mayor Pam Iorio said. "Seven lives were saved. That's just remarkable."

The Tampa search teams deployed within 24 hours of the earthquake striking Port-au-Prince and were part of an international team that found about 140 survivors, Picard said.

"There was bravery beyond what I've ever seen," Picard said.

The firefighters and medical professionals of his team, Florida Task Force 2, crawled through shattered buildings searching for hints of life despite numerous aftershocks and the danger of the ruins caving in, Picard and Smithey said.

"There's no greater honor for firefighters and medics to come home in the morning and say we saved a life last night," said Picard, who coordinates Tampa Fire Rescue's team of seven search dogs.

The agile, high-energy canines are trained to seek living human scents and can find survivors in minutes. Without search dogs, it could take hours or days for firefighters to find people buried under debris.

Five Tampa dogs, like Party Girl, are certified by the Federal Emergency Management Agency; two dogs have state certifications.

Powder, Smithey's black Labrador, sniffed out three live scents amid slabs of debris that was once a school. One of the victims, a woman in her 20's, was pinned by chunks of concrete. To free her, doctors amputated her arm, Smithey said.

The second person found suffered cuts and bruises; the third succumbed to a head injury before rescuers could reach her, Smithey said.

"It was like nothing we could ever imagine," Smithey said about the chaos in Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince. "Everyone was panicked and looking for food. I hate to use the word, but it was like a war zone. The loss of life was devastating."

The 7.0-magnitude quake on Jan. 12 killed at least 150,000 people and left more than 1.5 million homeless. U.S. officials say the rescue phase of the operation is over and the focus has shifted to relief and recovery.

Picard said when he was searching for the 7-year-old girl at the Caribbean market, he and other team members heard other voices in the ruins but couldn't pinpoint the locations.

After a few hours, the other voices stopped and the only one that remained belonged to the girl.

"She sounded like an angel," Picard said.

His past deployments include the World Trade Center after the Sept. 11 attacks, hurricane-ravaged areas in 2004 and 2008, and a parking garage that collapsed in Jacksonville in 2007. Smithey also helped search for survivors after the parking garage collapsed.

Tampa fire Chief Dennis Jones said Picard, Smithey and the canines did their city and community proud.

"They went above and beyond," Jones said. "These teams of canines and their handlers worked tirelessly with other teams. Most importantly, they've come home safely to us."