Her car was among the scores that were swept up in Spain’s deadly floods, tossed about by the mud-coloured waters that surged on to streets. But after 72 hours spent trapped in an underpass, the woman was hailed as one of the lucky ones.
“After three days, we found someone alive in their car,” Martín Pérez, the head of Valencia’s civil protection service, told volunteers on Saturday. The announcement prompted hearty applause.
Pérez later explained to local news site Levante that, as the floods coursed through the region, the woman’s car had been among the many scattered about by the fierce currents. She had ended up in an underpass in the municipality of Benetússer, trapped inside a car that was buried in a pile of other vehicles.
Emergency services were working nearby on Friday when they heard calls of “Doctor, doctor”. They rushed over to where the sound seemed to be coming from, tracing the voice to within a mound of cars.
After hours spent clearing out the vehicles and debris that clogged their path, rescuers were able to free the woman. She was treated at the site before being sent to hospital.
Spanish media described her rescue as a “miracle”, a ray of hope amid an increasingly desolate panorama. At least 217 people were killed by Tuesday’s torrential rains, while the number of missing remains unknown.
In recent days, stories have emerged of incredible rescues, saving people from the clutches of the deadliest floods in Spain’s modern history.
In the town of Albal, one man managed to climb out of his car as it was swept on to the pavement. He clambered up as high as he could, grasping on to the ledge of a nearby building as one foot remained precariously perched on a car. Below him, the waters rushed, rising steadily.
He was soon spotted by neighbours on the balcony directly above him, who scrambled to gather sheets to throw down to him. The man managed to grab on, hanging on tightly as three people on the balcony hoisted him up. Video of the rescue showed the man being tightly hugged by his rescuers as he made it to safety.
In the hard-hit municipality of Paiporta, where nearly a third of the deaths so far have been reported, the waters began to rise as English teacher Daniel Burguet still had three children at his academy waiting to be picked up by their parents. His own daughter waited with him.
“Within a few minutes, the water was half a metre high,” he told broadcaster TVE. They rushed to get the children, who ranged in age from about five to 11, on to the tables of the classroom.
An enormous sound rang out; the ferocious flood had shattered the glass wall of the academy. Burguet knew they had to get out. Wading out in waters up to his waist, he wrenched off the leg of a table that was floating by, using it to hammer the glass door next to the classroom.
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As he steadily chipped away at the glass, the waters swiftly rising around him, cars and rubbish containers floated by. “It was a nightmare,” he said.
A video captured the moment Burguet managed to open the door. Fighting the fierce currents, he went back and forth several times between the open door and the classroom, escorting the children and two other teachers to safety. “Ay, a child,” a woman screams in the video as he hands over a small child.
Behind him, “the waters continued to rise, nearly reaching the roof of the academy,” he said.
He brushed off the comments by many online who had hailed him as a hero. “The only thing I was thinking about was my survival and saving the people inside,” he said. “If I hadn’t had the option to break through that glass, I wouldn’t be here to tell this story.”