Sound clip: effects of Erebus disaster on police

Tony Taylor, professor of clinical psychology at Victoria University, describes the effects of the disaster on police.

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Transcript

Interviewer: [A] leading New Zealand psychologist says many of the Erebus rescue workers took almost two years to recover from the stress of handling and identifying victims of the Erebus crash. Tony Taylor, professor of clinical psychology at Victoria University, says the disaster caused stress symptoms seen among rescue workers during wartime.

Tony Taylor: Certainly there was fatigue because of the long hours that they worked at a stretch and over a period of time. The effects were troubled sleep, troubled in their eating, troubles in their general social activities, in their feelings about themselves. A number really became quite melancholy. These things lifted and the extent to which they lifted was a tribute to the groups to which they belong and to damned good management procedures and to camaraderie that came.

Interviewer: How long did some of these effects last then?

Tony Taylor: Well, some of them lasted as long as 20 months, which is a long time, and others didn't emerge until fairly late, and then they gradually subsided. People used various ways of coping with them as any human being would under these very difficult and very trying circumstances.