Paramedics rescued colleague from Spanish air crash
Agence France-Presse
First Posted 09:56:00 08/24/2008
Filed Under: Air and Space Accidents, Air Transport, Air safety
MADRID--A paramedic told AFP Saturday how she was rescued by her shocked co-workers after she stumbled from the smoldering wreckage of the crashed Spanish airliner in Madrid.
"Some colleagues who I knew arrived. I called out to them but they did not recognize me because my face was blackened from the smoke," Ligia Palomino told AFP. "When they realized who I was they became emotional."
Palomino, who herself helped treat victims of the March 2004 Madrid train bombings that killed 191 and injured nearly 2,000 others, said she could hear other crash survivors calling out for help. But this time she could do nothing.
"My leg was broken," she said.
Like all of the 18 survivors, Palomino, a Colombian-born Spaniard, was seated at the front of the Spanair flight bound for the Canary Islands when it slammed into a field shortly after takeoff on Wednesday.
When the plane broke apart on impact, most of the survivors were propelled out of the wreckage and away from the subsequent explosion that engulfed it.
Some of them even landed in a nearby stream, which protected them from the heat of the explosion.
Palomino was travelling to the Canary Islands with her boyfriend Jose Flores, who also works for Madrid's emergency services, and with Flores' sister. They had intended to celebrate her 42nd birthday there on Sunday.
Although Flores survived the crash, his sister died. He remains in an intensive care unit with several broken ribs.
"Tomorrow, which is my birthday, I will talk to him," she said. "I am with my family, who encourage me, but physically I feel I have been dealt a blow."
The death toll from the crash climbed to 154 on Saturday after a woman who died from her injuries, a health official said.
Maria Luisa Estevez Gonzalez, 31, passed away at a Madrid hospital where she was being treated for burns to 72 percent of her body.
Video images held by the civil aviation authority, AENA, showed that the US-made MD-82 twin-engine jet crashed and burst into flames moments after taking off on Wednesday.
"The plane managed to takeoff, then it started to sway from side to side, until it fell," said Palomino.
The plane had earlier begun taxiing to the runway, before turning back because of an undisclosed technical problem, which caused a one-hour delay.
"The commander informed us that there was a delay, he apologized and said there was a pilot light on and that he was going to have a mechanic review it," said Palomino.
"Many people in the back of the plane asked to leave. I could not really hear what was going on because I was in the front," she said, adding two buses were brought in next to the plane to collect the passengers.
Several relatives of the victims of the crash have told Spanish media that they received text messages or mobile telephone calls from their loved ones saying they had asked to leave the plane but the crew did not allow them to disembark.
Spanair has said that an air intake valve was repaired just before takeoff, but experts said that fault was not to blame for the accident and that a combination of as yet unknown faults caused the disaster.
The head of the investigation team, Emilio Valerio, has said the results of the probe would be known in about a month.
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