LASD Search and Rescue team members assisting in Turkey as survivors are found days after earthquake
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Search and Rescue team members are in Turkey assisting in ongoing efforts to find survivors amid collapsed buildings days after a 7.8 magnitude earthquake.
On Saturday, Mike Leum, a veteran of LASD Search and Rescue for more than 30 years, shared dramatic video on social media that showed a rescue effort in progress.
"We can hear a woman's voice in the rubble in Turkey. She has a baby. Trying to get to her now," Leum wrote on Twitter.
In a subsequent tweet that showed a photo of the scene, Leum wrote: "Now an 18yr old male can be heard! The woman we heard is also still alive. Unk if her baby is. Prayers needed here in Turkey."
The death toll of the enormous quake that struck a border region of Turkey and Syria five days ago has surpassed 25,000.
Dramatic rescues were being broadcast on Turkish television, including the rescue of the Narli family in central Kahramanmaras 133 hours after the quake struck early Monday. First, 12-year-old Nehir Naz Narli was saved, then both of her parents.
That followed the rescue earlier in the day of a family of five from a mound of debris in the hard-hit town of Nurdagi, in Gaziantep province, TV network HaberTurk reported. Rescuers cheered and chanted, "God is Great!" as the last family member, the father, was lifted to safety.
In March 2022, Leum returned from a mission to help save young orphans in Ukraine.
Leum was part of a team of specially trained volunteers on a mission to rescue disabled and special-needs orphans who have been adopted by U.S. families but were trapped in the war-torn country.
