A Whakaari/White Island eruption survivor, who lost both of his parents and sister, has recalled the moment he made the tough decision to walk himself to safety knowing he couldn't save his family.
The Langford family were from Australia and had been taking a holiday on the Ovation of the Seas cruise when they decided to take the volcano excursion on White Island on December 9 2019.
Jesse Langford was 19 years old at the time of the eruption, and today Auckland District Court played a video of his interview with police where he discusses details of the eruption, excruciating pain, and making the tough decision to leave his family to seek help.
Sitting in the courtroom, he described the moment he first heard the "loud bang" of a volcanic eruption.
"It looked like a black firework, and a couple of seconds later there was another one," Langford said.
"Everyone turned around and started taking photos thinking it was really cool - and then it started increasing in intensity, and the size of the bangs and the size of the shoots coming up into the sky," he said.
"I remember being hit by a wall of black."
He described the blast lasting for a few minutes and then seeing his parents.
"My dad was sitting up, saying he was struggling to breathe, trying to rip off the gas mask," he said.
"My mum wasn't moving at all."
Langford told police he knew he couldn't physically help anyone around him, so he decided to reach for help and let people know there were still people who were alive near the crater lake.
"The screaming stopped and it was getting quieter, with less and less sound from people around me," he said.
"It still bothers me, making the decision to get up and walk away. It was a very difficult decision to make," he said in the police evidence interview.
The court heard details of his desperate walk towards safety, and stopping along the way.
"I sat down again and I put my hand on like a rock and it was extremely hot and I took it off straight away," he said.
"By this point, my hands were already pretty much de-gloved, I was wearing gloves that just looked like skin."
"The skin was just hanging off every part of my body that I could see in between being covered in black ash," he told police.
Langford described how painful o gather his strength.
"When I was having internal contemplation, like am I going to die here or am I going to keep on going? And I just found the will to get up and keep on walking," he said.
Langford made it down to the wharf and into the arms of a rescuer, who took him back to Whakatane.
Langford recalled waking up in the hospital eight days later, and it was then that he discovered the fate of his family.
His father, mother and sister hadn't made it off the island and were all dead.
The trial is ongoing.
