Elliot Lake rescuer recounts finding mall collapse victims

The public inquiryprobing theElliot Lake mall roof collapse has heard what first responders saw and heard when they arrived at the scene of the disaster last summer.

During testimony on Tuesday, Elliot Lake fire fighter John Thomas told the inquiry rescuers entered the mall andmade their way tothe pile of debris from the fallen section of theroof-top parking deck.

He said they called out looking for anyone who was trapped. Theyused a sewer camera to get alook inside the wreckage, which included slabs ofconcrete and steel andan SUV that had been parked on the roof of the mall.

Within two hours of the collapse, Thomas said they found a hand stickingout of therubble.

"I reached down and I tried to get a radial pulse on her wrist," he said."I didn't have any pulse."

Thomas said the hand belonged to one of the victims of the collapse, 74-year-oldDoloris Perizzolo.

'To me, it was somebody'

Thomas also said he and another fire fighter thought they hard a muffled response from someone else nearby.

"It was a muffled noise that I heard. It sounded to me as if someone was responding back. To me, it was somebody."

Thomas told the inquiry there was too much debris in the way to get closer to where the sound was coming from. He said it stopped a short time later.

Rescue workers later removed 37-year-old Lucie Aylwin's body from that area.

'Somebody is going to get killed'

Thomas told the inquirywithin hours of the collapseall rescue workers weretold to leave the mall becauseoffears it was unstable.

He said at first he continued withhis rescue efforts, but left when ordered byhis fire chief.

"The way things were moving and dropping, and the pieces we wanted to cut, there was so much stuff hanging down, I was getting nervous," he said.

"I was starting to think, ok, somebody is going to get killed."

Close to tears at times during his testimony, Thomas told the inquiry he agreed with the decision to get rescue workers out of the failing building.

A special OPP "urban extraction" squad based in Toronto, called the Heavy Urban Search and Rescue Team (HUSAR) was dispatched to Elliot Lake around 9 p.m. that evening.

• READ: tracking the rescue effort

It would be days before heavy equipment arrived and the bodies of Doloris Perizzolo and Lucie Aylwin were removed from the collapsed mall.

The public inquiry was established in July 2012 by the Ontario government and has been underway in Elliot Lake since March.

It was created to report on events surrounding the mall roof's collapse on June 23, 2012, the deaths of Lucie Aylwin and Doloris Perizzolo, the injuries to others and the emergency management and response.