IT was no more than a flash of thought, but in that instant Margaret River's Dan Lee knew he might actually die.
Below city level in the crater of Christchurch's earthquake-ravaged Canterbury Television building, the then New Zealand police constable was frantically dragging broken-limbed victims from the collapsed concrete.
"The place was on fire and we were underneath the elevator shaft with these slabs bouncing above our heads and disintegrating in the aftershocks," Mr Lee told the Mail this week.
"My mate looked at me with these wide eyes and said 'we should be dead'. But that was the only time I stopped to think about it - it just had to be done."
This week Mr Lee who with his wife Suzette and four children have lived in Margaret River for the past two years flew back to Christchurch to receive the New Zealand bravery medal, one of only four awarded to police from that day.
It means he will miss playing in the grand final of his beloved Margaret River Gropers rugby side, unbeaten for the season. In fact, his excuse for missing the game was the first his close-knit team knew of Mr Lee's role in the quake rescue in February 2011.
"When he told me he was off to New Zealand to meet the Prime Minister I thought he was taking the mickey out of me," Gropers' coach Mark Sheath said this week.
The centre of the 6.3 magnitude quake was about a 45 minutes drive from the rural village where Mr Lee lived, so even without mobile phone service he felt confident his family was OK.
"Suzette's a paramedic so I knew if anyone could deal with it she could," he said.
"We were just trying to get as many people out as we could before the fire brigade got there, but when they arrived there was no water because all the pipes were broken in the quake.
"We were just pulling people out and on to the back of four-wheel drives that we flagged down so we could get them to hospital as quickly as possible.
"We just had rags over our faces to stop the smoke and we could hear but we couldn't see. In the end our sergeant had to pull us out because the fire just got too big. The last woman we pulled out was in this tiny hole. She had broken legs and arms but she fully recovered."
The bravery citation from the New Zealand government states Mr Lee and three of his colleagues risked their lives but saved many more.
"The efforts of Daniel Lee and the other police officers rescued at least six people from the CTV site," the citation read.
NZ Police Commissioner Mike Bush welcomed the recognition of the officers' actions.
"These officers put their own safety at risk to save the lives of others in dangerous, difficult and very distressing situations. They should all be very proud of what they did that day, as should everybody who responded to this tragedy."
Now working underground as a fly-in, fly-out worker on a Leinster gold mine, Mr Lee said his family had fallen in love with Margaret River and its community.
As a way of giving back, Mr Lee has instigated the fundraising Winter Man challenge, which require his Gropers team mates to grow their hair and beards throughout the colder months. All sponsorship money will go to the local cancer support agency River Angels.
Gropers coach Mark Sheath said Mr Lee was a committed and passionate team member and had been instrumental in developing local rugby prospects at Marg aret River Senior High School.
"He is just a lovely, charismatic guy. It has been an absolute pleasure and a privilege to have him involved in the rugby culture in Margaret River."