Eduardo Blasco, rescue diver: « Sometimes they have to stop you to be able to sleep with a quiet conscience » | Spain

He has just been proclaimed absolute champion of rescue and lifeguard in 50 meters in Torrevieja (Alicante). But the news of Eduardo Blasco (San Sebastián, 31 years old) is usually elsewhere: in open seas, in rescue missions. Swimmer and diver, Blasco spent six months ago helping In the Dana de Valencia.

Ask. Do you rescue for someone?

Answer. For rescued. I go voluntary diver, either for governments or for Oenegés. I do not march with anyone, because many times we cannot control what others do or who finances others. I am voluntary without charging, and I always go to missions that I consider to control a little. That is why I do not usually give names of oenegés or countries.

P. And with governments they have problems.

R. With some. Once we did a rescue on a Central African boat that had about 40 people (it refers to a rescue of Open Arms that ended up dating the media due to the consequences and debate it generated). It was already flooding. We picked them up. And since we did not have covered the capacity of the ship, we continue to rescue in the central Mediterranean. We made a second rescue about a wooden boat with a more robust structure than the previous one, which had more than 100 people from Bangladés. When we do that rescue, we ask Puerto to Italy. Salvini (Matteo) what he did was take a long time to give us port to wear out. If you ask for aid, it cannot take ten days to respond, it is illegal, so it is prosecuted (Salvini has been prosecuted for preventing the landing of migrantsnot because of the delay in your response). Meloni (Giorgia) has a way to fight against this type of rescue much more creative: it gives you port right away, but far away. We were below Lampedusa. And it gave us Puerto in Marina Di Carrara, which borders France in northern Italy.

P. What did they do?

R. Go there, what a remedy. And on the way, a Syrian boat appears deviated from its route. They were fleeing the fighting in their country. More than 40, well pertrected, but drifting. Omitting the relief of a drift vessel is illegal. So, regardless of whether we had a port, there was no one else in the area to recover them. And we could not guarantee their safety if they passed 48, 72 or more hours. When there are doubts, as happens many times between Spain and Morocco, in the end people end up dying. Italy understands that we should not have done that rescue (some countries argue that, once a port is assigned, new operations should not be made for logistics reasons). We understand that we should have done it and it was not easy to make the decision. We think about it. We knew we could get into a problem. But we don’t rescue them too. And none of those who are there would have ever slept well in our lives if we had left.

P. They were arrested.

R. Sometimes they have to stop to be able to sleep with quiet consciousness.

P. Do you not charge?

R. Not a hard.

P. And he is a lawyer, but he does not exercise.

R. Luckily I have good sports results. It allows me to live well. And I am not an ostentatious person who needs much. I don’t want to say figures, but you earn well. The day my results are inferior and I will not give me, I will leave the pools for an office, which is what I am destined for. But I will still not charge a hard for going to save someone, because that goes against my values. And it is not little what they offer you.

P. You are at home in the Canary Islands, and see Valencia floods. What are you doing?

R. It was my first day of training. He calls me Edu, a friend of mine from Aldaia, also swimmer, and puts me aware. « Everything has gone to shit, » he tells me. The psychologist had told me that he had many missions, who rests. But such a call changes your chip.

P. Was it for free?

R. I threw an agenda and, from which I called, nobody was mobilized. Companions, rescue forces. They replied « we are waiting for the superior. » I went there with my team. If something was missing the first 48 hours were teams and motobombs. Those that supplied us were electric, but there was no electricity.

P. Mouth to mouth and take a hand in the groups you already know.

R. It was a situation that, as it totally surpassed us, required a solution … improvised. It’s ugly to say it, but there is no other way. That is, it was very improvised.

P. It was hard.

R. Nothing was seen. It’s all mud. All. Everything was very dark. When you shape this, there are several search courses in confined spaces that you have to do. And many times it goes from sensations more than really a search, because you see nothing. You see absolutely anything. Not with a flashlight: in the mud, it is impossible.

P. He says the situation beat everyone.

R. At many levels, also with respect to material. Many of the victims were in particular garages, therefore, the great searches were not very efficient, because there is a big difference. It is very difficult to adjust the protocol to a search in private properties. It cannot be that a firefighter from Zaragoza and a diver from Andalusia do not have a minimum of general protocol to understand when actions are being made that a blue cross and a red circle do not mean the same, that one and the other do not know what we are referring to. There must be a homogeneous action protocol.

P. …

R. A MOSSO You have to work just like a policeman and a diver has to work just like a firefighter: if you don’t waste so much time that you can cost someone’s lives. If we have a tornado, if we have a fire, if there is a volcano, if there is a flood, we have to be ready.

P. He is critical of cuts.

R. Emergency services are not a superfluous expense. They cannot be subject to a cut. Emergency services are that: emergency services. If they are deficit because there is a year when you do not need, do not worry: their goal is to be when they are needed, and unfortunately it will happen. You cannot cut in firefighters, in rescue services. Because when you need them, they will be more expensive. Nothing is worth more than a person continues to breathe. We have to prepare better, we have to prepare the children better and we also have to give them an adequate material, because there are already many cases in which the boat was not enough, in which the material was not enough, in which the troops were not enough. And that cannot happen.