IT’’S not quite often that unsung heroes receive a ‘thank you’.

But last week Tuesday, five Fire and Rescue workers from the Tzaneen Fire Station had something to smile about.

Train driver, Prince Madau, who was trapped in a derailed freight train at Politsi four years ago, wanted to express his gratitude towards the heroes of The Mopani Fire and Rescue Services who saved his life. The freight train carrying thousands of litres of diesel derailed near Politsi on July 12, 2013.

Read: TZANEEN: Unsung rescue heroes thanked four years after train disaster

The derailment caused havoc for local emergency services.Prince was trapped under the train for more than eight hours while the delicate rescue efforts were underway. The train was en-route from Polokwane to Tzaneen transporting 26 diesel tankers. It derailed near Letaba Packers at Politsi just before 17:00. Letaba Herald had a little informal interview with the five heroes of the day last Wednesday.

‘It was a normal Friday afternoon when we received the call of the accident,’ Eric Senwana, Tzaneen Fire Station Lead Fireman tells.

Once arriving at the scene, they saw the need for the assistance of a second rescue team. Fire-Fighter, Ditebogo Motseo was on leave on that fateful day.

‘They phoned me and I rushed with my own car to the Fire Station. They were all out on the scene when I arrived here. I took my uniform and rushed to the scene with the second turn out,’ Motseo tells. ‘We went to the locomotive and found the driver was buried under the soil with only his head sticking out,’ according to Senwane.

The train derailed and crashed into an embankment of sand. The train driver was trapped, but alive. ‘There was a lot of spillage and diesel was leaking out of the tankers. We saw that all the coaches had rolled.’ So they had to deal with two big things – the spillage and the rescue of the driver.

‘But we are here to save lives first. We had to excavate, stabilise and rescue the patient,’ Senwana tells.

‘We started observing him. We looked at his safety at that point and of ourselves. From there we took spades to start to dig away the soil. Then we found that the steel was trapping his body. We took the jaws-of-life and started to cut away the steel. After that we continued to dig further.’ At this stage of the rescue operation Prince was conscious and speaking to the rescue team.

They kept on digging further hoping, that Prince would soon be rescued. ‘We dug and found more steel bending him like this,’ Senwane explains grabbing his legs to demonstrate.

Again the jaws-of-life were used. ‘I asked him to grab my hand to help me so that I can pull him out. Remember he was still conscious. But we couldn’t pull him out. We found that his leg was bent and we couldn’t get him out.’ The rescue team started then to dig further and used a grinder to cut parts of the train away until there was a big enough space to extricate him safely. ‘So we did finally extricate him with a spinal board and we got him out of the train.’ By then it was already 2 o’clock in the Unsung rescue heroes thanked 4 years later morning.

The rescue operation had lasted almost 9 hours.

The team were not alone, and other rescue angels like EMS and the Modjadjiskloof Fire Station were there to assist by giving Prince emergency care and helping the team with the complicated extrication. The team tells that Prince was still conscious when they pulled him out.

‘Once he realised that he was hurt he collapsed. He was then taken to hospital.’

Did they think he would survive?

‘Yes, you see, sometimes we can think that, but it is difficult to say. Sometimes you get to a patient and he looks as if he is not badly injured but then he dies…but we also hope for the best.’ Senwana said .

A nine hour rescue operation.

‘You see when we are struggling .. we know we can call all our teams to come that we may assist each other.’ And so the team continuously tells with the highest respect of all that helped during that day. Everyone that was on standby who was called to assist: then-Lead-Fireman, Deon van Vuuren, the Modjajdjiskloof Fire Station, the EMS Rescue team and many more.

After an operation like this, what goes through a rescuers mind? Do they ponder on it, pray for the patient, sit and analyse if they would’ve done anything different?

‘Normally…you see we are used to rescues like this … it’s our work, we just come back to the station. It is our daily routine and that is the challenge we face everyday. We just focused during that moment when we are busy with the rescue. From there we are going on with other stuff, because we don’t know what the next rescue or fire will hold for us. So we clear our heads to be ready for the next one. And when the next rescue call comes in…we just jump in,’ Senwana said.

They are Tzaneen’s heroes. Heroes that are not always recognised.

But Prince decided to do things differently.

And most probably the right thing.

On Tuesday July 11, he paid a visit to the Tzaneen Fire Station to thank them personally.

Did they expect that he will come and say thank you?

‘No we never expected it, we were very surprised.’

Thank-you. Such a small word.

Often used too little. But meaning the world