A New York photographer told yesterday of the life-changing moment when he took a picture of a beaming boy named Kiki being pulled alive from the rubble in Haiti after almost eight days.

Matthew McDermott’s photograph of Kiki, with his arms outstretched, seems destined to become an iconic image of the devastating earthquake.

“It was definitely one of those moments, as a human being, just to be there, besides the photograph. It’s something you will never forget,” Mr McDermott told The Times yesterday from Port-au-Prince.

Mr McDermott, working for Polaris Images, a picture agency, travelled to Haiti with AmeriCares, an aid agency.

He was driving through the capital after dark on Tuesday when he spotted vehicles from New York Task Force 1, a US search-and-rescue team.

The force is made up of 80 members from the city’s police department and fire brigade, trained to respond to urban disasters. Its members combed the wreckage of the World Trade Centre after the September 11 attacks.

Jim Long, a fire department spokesman in New York, said that the team had been alerted to the trapped children by locals. Mr McDermott said: “They told me they had two live children buried.

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