BRAVE Blackpool firefighter Reg Tassiker has just returned from Turkey after desperately searching for survivors of the country's recent earthquake.

Reg, stationed at Bispham Fire Station, joined seven other volunteers to form the Lancashire Fire and Rescue Team - and it was Reg's second mission in Turkey after helping out in August's earthquake.

But there was one happy memory for Reg, 48, who returned from his post south of Istanbul to the UK on Thursday (November 18) - he helped rescue a woman trapped for five days in the rubble of an eight storey building.

Reg, who has been a firefighter for 25 years, said: "This time there wasn't the level of destruction we found in August.

"The earthquake happened at 5pm and was at a time when most people were out of their homes.

"But there were still people who were killed and we managed to drag a couple of bodies out.

"We were working in shifts on a big eight storey building where we had heard tapping noises.

"So we were involved in peeling layers of rubble away and the day after we left we learned a woman had been dragged out alive.

"The Turks were magnificent, but they are now too frightened to go back to their houses because they think another earthquake will strike.

"But when we were travelling around people were tooting their horns and waving and one man stuck a box of Turkish Delight in my hand.

"It's nice to be involved with a rescue attempt that resulted in someone staying alive. That's what makes my job worthwhile."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.