“I lost my relatives, I lost my friends, we lost people we knew in Antakya, Kahramanmaraş, Gaziantep…”
Gendarmerie plane and helicopter technician Sergeant Gülsüm Çetin was caught in the earthquake in İskenderun. He worked nonstop to heal the wounds of earthquake survivors like himself.
He called his family in Gaziantep to learn about their health status. He told his father, Cetin, who is a veteran of Cyprus, “We are fine. "There are people out there who need help, don't stop, run to duty," he said.
It was his first assignment in the field.
The earthquake zone was the first assignment of Gülsüm Çetin, one of the two female technicians in the history of gendarmerie aviation.
Çetin was ready for the mission, but the weather conditions were not suitable for the flight. Stating that it was snowing and the visibility was very low, Çetin said, "We all took a joint decision and took the risk and took the flight."
“You Have To Do Everything You Can Until Your Arms Can't Lift”
Çetin, who took a risk at the cost of his life, passed the most important test of his professional life. Çetin described the struggle in the earthquake zone as follows:
“Child, old, young, woman, man… Gender, age, nothing matters. We did what we could, whoever could afford it. I removed things that I normally wouldn't be able to remove. You have to do whatever you can until your feet don't hold, until your arms don't get up. We did it with that belief.”
Gülsüm Çetin distributed aid by helicopter. He supported the evacuation of the wounded and the transportation of the personnel to the region.
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