A Venezuelan security guard who spent 8 days trapped beneath the rubble of a collapsed shopping center was pulled to safety Thursday in what rescuers described as a miraculous rescue amid one of the country’s deadliest natural disasters.
Hernán Alberto Gil Flores, 43, was rescued after more than 100 hours of painstaking excavation beneath the collapsed Galerías Playa Grande shopping center in La Guaira, one of the areas hardest hit by the twin 7.2- and 7.5-magnitude earthquakes that struck Venezuela on June 24.
Rescue teams from Chile, Costa Rica, the United States, Portugal, Mexico, El Salvador, and Venezuela erupted in cheers as Gil Flores, wearing an oxygen mask, was carried on a stretcher to a waiting Red Cross ambulance. (RELATED: State Department Announces ‘Total Compliance’ From Venezuelan Government In Relief Efforts)
Gil Flores survived because the small security booth where he was working the night shift remained intact even as the surrounding concrete collapsed, creating a life-saving air pocket. After rescuers established contact with him over the weekend, they kept him alive by passing water and liquid nutrients through a narrow shaft while carefully tunneling through the unstable debris.
The operation unfolded amid dangerous aftershocks, torrential rain, and the constant threat of another collapse.
“When we found him, he asked us not to tell his wife that he was alive, just in case he wouldn’t make it,” Costa Rican Red Cross rescuer Minyar Collado told reporters. “We were never going to leave him here.”
His wife, Gusbimar González, said the news that rescuers had reached her husband transformed days of despair into hope.
“When I learned he was alive, I saw a ray of light in the darkness,” she said. The couple has two children, ages 8 and 10.
Chilean firefighter María Paz Campos remained in constant communication with Gil Flores during the rescue, encouraging him through the final hours. In video released before the extraction, she calmly instructed him to keep protective goggles on as debris continued falling around him.
“I need you to keep the goggles on, for the small particles that are falling, to avoid them getting into your eye,” Campos told him.
The dramatic rescue provided a rare moment of hope after the devastating earthquakes, which have killed more than 2,200 people, injured over 11,000 and damaged or destroyed tens of thousands of buildings across northern Venezuela. Thousands remain displaced as recovery efforts continue. (RELATED: Argentine Soccer Player Loses Wife, Children In Venezuela Earthquake)
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