Throughout her geology studies, Lillani Hopkins often joked about how lucky it would be to see a volcano erupt.
But after she and her father Geoff witnessed the lethal eruption of Whakaari/White Island in 2019 – and tended to some of the most critically burned – the 24-year-old concedes now it’s something “no one should ever see”.
Three years on and reflecting how the tragedy has changed her life, Lillani continues to come to terms with what has happened by educating others. After the disaster, she decided to qualify as a teacher and educate kids about volcanoes.
“Sometimes I will go a day without thinking about it,” the intermediate school teacher tells Woman’s Day. “Some days I think about it all the time because of little triggers.”
“Our class’ enquiry topic at the moment is volcanoes, so I briefly shared with students a little bit about what I went through. Some of them already knew – those who like to google their teacher! – but a lot didn’t and some kids cried.
“They wanted to know why I would go and help. And their main concern was, ‘Did people get stuck in the lava?’ So I had to explain there were different types of eruptions.”
Palmerston North-born Lillani had lived in England most of her life until her family moved back to New Zealand in 2016. Visiting White Island had always been the dream for the self-confessed “volcano nerd”.
“My dad came over from the UK for a year when he was 25, met my mum here and toured White Island. He often talked about it and it was something I really wanted to do with him.”
So Lillani bought Geoff, a Hamilton pastor, a ticket for his birthday. Mum Lyn, 60, was unable to join them after hurting her back.
Lillani describes arriving at the island that sunny December day as being like a scene from a movie. “It was surreal. I was so excited and in awe!” she recalls.
When they began their tour, the group’s two guides told them to wear hard hats. They were also given gas masks (which Lillani found she needed to wear peering into the crater) and hard-boiled lollies to suck, to reduce the taste of sulphur.
As they walked around the island, the then-university student was full of enthusiasm and questions, even asking her guide, “What do we do if it erupts?”
Lillani and dad Geoff not long before the tragedy.
“Strap on your mask and take shelter,” the guide answered, before mentioning there was a shipping container somewhere on the island that had supplies in it. After completing the tour, Lillani was the last one back on the boat for the hour-long trip back to Whakatāne.
“We were just pulling away from the bay and I remember staring into the distance at the mainland, trying to avoid sea sickness, when I heard loads of people moving behind me.
“Then Dad nudged me and I turned to see huge clouds of ash and steam shooting into the sky,” tells Lillani, who initially grabbed her phone to film it.
“As soon as our crew saw, we went full-speed away and they told everyone to get inside to avoid the ash. Thirty seconds later, the entire island was engulfed in a huge ash cloud.”
The terrifying sight Lillani captured on her phone.
Shortly after the catastrophic eruption, their tour guides turned the boat around, heading back into the clouds of volcanic ash, in a bid to search for survivors. When asked if anyone on board had first-aid training, Geoff, 52, and Lillani jumped up to assist alongside other passengers who were doctors.
“I was handed a first-aid kit and walked around the back of the boat,” she says. “The first lot of people we picked up were already on the shore, so when it erupted, they’d jumped in the water. They weren’t burnt – they just had ash in their hair and we gave them eye washes. It was when they brought the next load of people who had been on the island that we saw the severity of what had happened.”
Nothing could have prepared Lillani for the extent of trauma in front of her.
“I’ve never seen people burnt that badly. I’ve never seen people scream in so much pain. The realisation hit that 10 minutes earlier, it could’ve been me.
“They kept bringing people on board, around 26 altogether. Dad was helping the more severe victims who were going in and out of consciousness, while I was at the back of the boat, pouring water on people’s burns. After a while, they started to go into shock, so we needed to warm them up. That’s when we started taking off our clothes to give to them.”
In a desperate bid to keep survivors calm, Lillani attempted to make conversation and began singing a favourite church song called Way Maker.
Daughter and Dad are planning a flyover of the island. “It’s something we need to do,” says Lillani.
“I sang it for me, for my peace of mind and to block out the screams of pain around me,” she explains quietly. “I’m not a great singer and I didn’t realise anyone else could hear me. But when I stopped singing, a guy I was helping grabbed my leg and said, ‘Keep going.'”
Halfway back, the coast guard met the tour boat and two paramedics jumped aboard. Lillani says they administered pain relief to some of the injured, but others were so severely burned, the paramedics couldn’t find their veins.
“Arriving in Whakatāne, I saw that the local park had been cordoned off with police cars, ambulances and fire engines, and I realised the magnitude of what had happened.”
After helping load those most critical off the boat and onto stretchers, and being interviewed by police, the father-daughter duo got in their car and made the drive home to Hamilton.
“We didn’t talk too much,” she recalls. “But the moment we arrived home was when the shock fully set in and I burst into tears when I saw Mum.”
Mum Lyn is in awe of her two heroes. “Going through this has changed us,” says Lillani.
In the days to follow, survivors and their family members reached out to Lillani and Geoff to say thank you.
Of the 47 tourists on the island that day, tragically 22 of them lost their lives. Others suffered life-changing burns, spending months in recovery. Last November, it was announced that 13 organisations and individuals would be charged for breaching workplace health and safety rules related to tourism on the island. The trial is due to go ahead next year.
For Lillani, her passion for volcanoes hasn’t waned. She plans to visit Mounts Tongariro and Ruapehu over summer, and she and her father are looking at doing a flyover of Whakaari in the new year.
“It’s something we need to do together,” she smiles. “Going through this has changed us and brought me closer to Dad.”
Other things have changed since that fateful day. “I’m usually a worrier who tends to panic when things go wrong. After White Island, I’ve learned not to stress the small stuff. I just feel incredibly lucky to be alive.”
