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ABOARD THE USNS COMFORT -- During a recent drill, members of the Fairfax County Urban Search and Rescue team waded through a maze of office furniture to reach people inside a building. They considered the exercise tiresome. But after arriving in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, to help rescue earthquake survivors, their minds changed.

"We were kind of getting upset with that," said squad member Mark Fernandez, 30, of Gainesville, who was getting treatment for a minor back injury aboard the Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort on Sunday. "But that's what we're doing now."

As of Sunday night, the group had rescued 16 people from the rubble and has assisted other teams in rescuing eight people, according to Bill Barker, a medical team manager on the squad. Urban Search and Rescue has been working virtually around the clock, acting on tips from Haitians about where people might be found alive.

The team prepared to deploy to Haiti on Jan. 12, the night of the earthquake. On Jan. 13, 121 people from Urban Search and Rescue departed. 

"They're not going to sleep anyway so you might as well let them work," said Barker, 53, of Fairfax Station about his team.

Barker, a member of the squad since the 1980s, said he slept about three hours during the first 72-hour rescue period. He speaks some French and said the Haitians have been very cooperative, from Haitian rescue workers providing hands-on support to regular residents providing information and staying out of the way of technical rescues.

An 80-person "heavy team," including doctors and engineers, went on the squad's first foray into Port-au-Prince for survivors.

On one mission, an Urban Search and Rescue crew rescued a woman after 32 hours of work. Another operation performed by another team had a strange ending: Barker said a French team rescued a man who appeared healthy and well-fed Saturday. Their last rescue was several days ago.

"It's very rare to find anybody alive after seven to 10 days," Barker said.

"We haven't been very successful recently," said Fernandez, a two-and-a-half-year veteran of the Urban Search and Rescue team.

In addition to its life-saving work, the squad has been called upon to help with a variety of tasks. These have included cleaning the U.S. Embassy, where the team was stationed from the beginning of operations, and recovering medical supplies from collapsed hospitals to set up new ones in the field.

In the process of one mission, Fernandez fell about 6 feet onto a protruding steel water pipe, hurting his back, although aboard the Navy hospital ship Comfort on Sunday he said the injury was not too serious.

What sticks in his mind are the "sights and smells" of the people he could not save.

"We wish we could have done more ... I wish we could have done 116 rescues," Fernandez said.

The team will likely leave Port-au-Prince this week, Barker said. Fourteen days after the earthquake, it is unrealistic to expect to find anyone alive in the city's toppled buildings, he said.

"It's probably going to be the crowning mission, at least in my career," Barker said.