A SMALL girl plucked from the seething sea was wrapped in a blanket, lapsing in and out of consciousness.
One man from the shipwreck had head wounds. A second pulled aboard had lacerated legs and feet.
Another had internal injuries. A fourth, older than the others, was disorientated.
This is how a navy commander described the horrific scene aboard his own vessel after a fishing boat carrying asylum-seekers smashed to pieces on the cliffs of Christmas Island in the early hours of December 15.
Lieutenant Commander Mitchell Robert Livingstone was in charge of HMAS Pirie which mounted a daring rescue after being told that the boat known as SIEV 221 was in trouble.
Forty-one people were rescued that day and one scrambled to safety on the rocks.
Thirty bodies were found - 11 women, 11 men, five children, three babies - and 20 lost at sea.
Yesterday Commander Livingstone told a Perth inquest into the tragedy of his crew's efforts to save the asylum seekers and get them medical help.
''There was a lot of debris in the water … timber, people, lifejackets,'' he told the court.
''The boat had broken up - we didn't know where to look.''
Commander Livingstone said he and his crew did not initially know the severity of the situation. They could not imagine how bad it got.
HMAS Pirie had been on the other side of the island, sheltering from the bad weather, when the crew were told about the asylum-seeker boat adrift off a spot called Rocky Point.
Given the treacherous weather conditions and uncharted waters, Commander Livingstone decided to send two inflatable jet boats.
He knew they would get there faster and be more manoeuvrable but the huge swells meant they could not take a direct route.
When the crew returned on the first round of rescue missions they reported ''there were less survivors and more deceased''.
They saved as many people as they could, ferrying them back to HMAS Pirie then on to an area known as Ethel Beach.
He had the added worry of trying to get the passengers ashore without having to be confronted by the bodies of their loved ones.
The frantic attempts to rescue those from SIEV 221 were hampered by a series of problems including engine breakdowns, and the absence of a search and rescue boat on Christmas Island.
An Australian Customs and Border Protection officer, Ross Martin, told the court that the only customs boat on the island could not be launched because there was no one capable of manning the boat and it could not be used in rough seas.
The hearing has also been told this week that the Australian Federal Police boats on the island were also out of action.
The first part of the inquest is examining what happened in the lead-up to the shipwreck, the monitoring and surveillance of waters in the region before the boat reached Christmas Island, the adequacy of the rescue response by the navy, and the capabilities of authorities on Christmas Island to conduct rescues.
The inquest is continuing.
smh.com.au
for footage of the rescue.
Email a friend