This was how the Cayuco overturus was lived in the iron: « I never saw anything like » | Spain

Iron has become accustomed In recent years to receive an incessant flow of Cayucos with hundreds of people on board and to be the scene of a human drama after another. However, many of those who attended on Wednesday to the turn of a boat with 152 people On board in full spring of La Restinga (south of the island) in which three girls and four women lost their lives, they coincide in something: they had never witnessed anything similar. « I never saw anything like yesterday, » says the Canarian President, who was on the island at the time of tragedy. « Yesterday was a turning point », Complete Luis González, Medical Director of the Insular Hospital Nuestra Señora de los Reyes. Two divers and two sanitary ones present in the emergency have refused to report what happened: they claim to be still too affected.

On Wednesday, around 9.30 in the morning, Salvamar Diphda He arrived at La Restinga escorting a Cayuco with 152 people ―19 girls and 10 boys on board. detected to six nautical miles (about 11 kilometers) from the coast. « It is overloaded, » explains Marcos Díaz, maritime rescue sailor and CGT union delegate in the Canary Islands. « By the images it is seen that it must bring water inside and that people have been making the savings close to the Salvamar. The companions already have the firm ends in bow and stern when the Cayuco gives the first band, but it stabilizes. Shortly after, it gives a second, and from this it no longer recovers. It turns and all fall. An operation concluded in 99% was twisted in just five seconds. »

At that time, they were on the dock Canarian television and Spanish television journalists They recorded the tragedy. After the turnaround, the strongest passengers managed to get out of little water, helped by the rescue personnel – who did not hesitate to throw themselves into the water -, grabbed the lifeguards who were thrown from them from the savage or perched on the side of the Cayuco. The women and minors took the worst part.

« When we arrived, I quickly entered the hospital at the foot of the dock, » recalls Luis González. “There were mostly women and children. I think I didn’t see any male adult. All women, Babysmall girls … It’s the first time I see something like that, so crudely. ”

There was also room for small miracles. It Javier Iglesias, an Ovetense hotel businessman, settled in the Restinga. « After getting a lot of them, they managed to turn the Cayuco. Inside, in an air bubble, they found a lot of them more. »

The Canarian Health Service (SCS) has permanently allocated the call Pateras equipmentwhich in principle is made up of a doctor and a nurse, explains Manuel Gálvez, one of the professionals present in the intervention. « When the turnaround occurred, » recalls González, « I received the call from Alex (Aguilar, a doctor for that day in the hospital). » The Hospital Medical Chief lifted the phone and recruited to several more professionals who came to the call. This call made that at the time of The tragedy would have on the ground up to five doctors and six nurses. « I’ve never heard a but When I called someone to face cases like those that happened yesterday, ”says González.

On the dock the situation was exceptional, according to the witnesses consulted. « It was not normal, I was very tense. Everyone wants to help, but you see that in everyone the head of everyone is the misfortune, » recalls Gálvez. « I had to revive a child of about three years, and then another child, who would be subsequently transferred to Candelaria. » Both evolve favorably, as the SCS has reported on Thursday. Beside him, his teammates tried to revive a girl of about 10 or 11 years. « I had a lung that did not ventilate. It was very annoyed, » González completes. She ran worse luck, and died in the ambulance transfer to the hospital.

President Clavijo was in The island at the time of tragedy. The previous Tuesday he had met with a mission of the Commission of Civil Liberties, Justice and Interior Affairs (LIBE) of the European Parliament, and on Wednesday he tried the descent of the Virgen de los Reyes, which is held every four years in early July. « They told us that a Cayuco was entering at that time, and since the day before I had been with the Eurodiputos to explain the migratory reality, I decided to be present in the landing. And when we were on the way to La Restinga we informed us that the Cayuco seems to have turned, that there could be deceased … ».

« A drama »

The nationalist leader confesses to never witnessed anything similar. « It was horrible. A drama. Attending to the search for missing people, including a girl, see an ambulance evacuating a minor who, finally, could not survive; or how two more children are pursed to get them out of helicopter. And, above all, the images of baby corpses wrapped in the red cross masters. Horrible. »

« We have lived a lot, » Luis González agrees, « but this occasion is different. As a health professional you are trained to face this type of emergencies, and at that time you believe you Superman. But yesterday it was a turning point. Yesterday everyone in unison crying since I left the resting. ” González, in fact, has pronounced these last phrases broken by crying. « You always stay with the ‘and if’: ‘And if I had done this or that …’. The professionals are prepared to face these situations. But, fortunately, this time we have had the support of the College of Psychologists of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. This time we have needed. »

Maritime rescue sailors also claim help. « Similar situations is what we often find ourselves in the high seas, but there is infinitely more complicated everything, » explains Marcos Díaz. “Imagine this at night, outside, on the high seas, with waves of a couple of meters and 20 knots of wind without visibility. And only with the hands of four crew. For cases like this we have been asking for more crews: at one point the operation is complicated and you have no hands to solve it ”.

The Deputy Minister of the Presidency of the Government of the Canary Islands, Alfonso Cabello, has also advocated Thursday before the media for more human and technical resources to prevent new tragedies like this. « I hope this removes consciences and serves something, » says Clavijo in this regard. « Regardless of whether or not you can agree with immigration policy, let’s be a little human, let’s make politics to make this a better place. »

The island refuses to get used to tragedies like this, or as the turnaround happened on September 28 on the high seas, in which they recovered just nine bodies and about 50 people disappeared. This Wednesday, different institutions of the islands have summoned minutes of silence at noon in memory of the victims. The island council has decreed two days of official mourning, while preparing the first of the burials in Valverde. « We see how people and babies die daily, » Marcos Díaz closes, « but we, then, do not go to our homes and we have our families. Those who have also died had them. And we were wrong when we turned them into mere statistics. »