“Born again,” says Hernan Gil, 43, from his hospital bed in Caracas. After the double earthquake which left more than 3,500 dead in Venezuela, this parking guard from Catia La Mar, in the state of La Guaira (north), spent eight days underground before rescuers managed to extract him.
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The first shock was brief, Mr. Gil said in an interview with AFP. “The second, on the other hand, was extremely strong.” He remembers being frozen in his booth, paralyzed.
He heard a neighbor in the parking lot say it was an earthquake, and immediately “everything collapsed.” Blocks of stone hit the back of his head and his eye. Knocked out. “When I woke up, everything was dark (…) From then on, it was just uncertainty.”
Hernan Gil saw nothing and heard no one. He tried to call a neighbor just before the earth closed in on him, “but nothing.”
“At that moment, I was overcome by terrible despair,” he confides, adding that he started screaming for help. Without hearing the slightest response.
In the darkness, half on his knees, with little air and almost motionless, he suffered the aftershocks that followed one another.
“I felt like the wall was completely crushing me.”
“See my children again”
Despite everything he has experienced, Mr. Gil speaks in a cheerful tone. Sitting in an armchair, dressed in his blue patient uniform, his left arm immobilized in a sling, the security guard of Sol Marina Garden, an eight-story building of which nothing remains, assures that it was his faith that brought him calm.
“I prayed a lot. I implored God, and said to him: My God, why me? Why like that? Please at least let me see my children again.”
In this uncomfortable position, Hernan Gil tried to lean back sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other of his hole, but he could not sleep. The stones he fell on injured his legs, his nose bled and his right eye was swollen.
During these hours of solitude, he thought of his wife, Gusbimar Gonzalez, who, outside, was watching for the slightest sign of life. He also thought of his children and his father, who had already passed away. “A lot of memories came back to me,” he says, stressing that he lost track of time.
On the third day, he heard footsteps, “but very far away”. He started screaming and calling for help, and eventually heard a response.
Mr. Gil remembers, with a smile, that in that moment he thought, “Oh my God, there’s someone here.” There is life expectancy.”
It was then that a dramatic rescue began, followed by dozens of journalists.
While teams from seven countries fought to reach him, keep him hydrated and keep his spirits up, Mr. Gil felt that the walls continued to move, imprisoning him ever more: “a tough fight.”
But when two rescuers from Chile and the United States finally reached him, after more than three days of complex operations, Hernan Gil was not able to rejoice.
“The hardest thing was getting out,” remembers this man whose legs were stuck in a chair. He has no doubt that it is a miracle: “I have been born again!” », he breathes.
At the hospital, Gil was able to talk with his children via video conference, and he can’t wait to go home. But doctors have not yet given him a release date.
He sleeps, but the moments of anguish he experienced underground sometimes wake him up. Accompanied day and night by his wife, the man does not know very well what awaits him from now on, in this new life.
However, he says he has a few certainties: he wants to celebrate his son’s birthday on July 15, take a beach vacation, and… never work in a basement again.
