Erika Peñalba is still in shock after what she experienced last Saturday night. “It was terrifying, none of us saw it coming”, says the 19-year-old who was travelling with 34 other passengers and 12 crew members on board the ferry ‘San Gwann’, belonging to the FRS ferry company, which collided with the islet of es Malvins. She recounts the terrible experience over the phone from her parents’ house in Ibiza. She is there after being discharged from the Policlínica Nuestra Señora del Rosario, where she was taken by ambulance after a doctor examined her at the same commercial dock in Ibiza. “I have whiplash and they have put me in a neck brace that I will have to wear for ten days, as well as some bruising,” she explains, aware that she was, what should be considered, lucky.
That same Saturday, after flying from Mallorca to Ibiza, Peñalba went to the port to catch the 9.30pm FRS ferry to Formentera, where she lives and works. The boat departed five minutes later. She had never travelled with this ferry company before. “I remember that I wrote to my partner to tell him that the ‘San Gwann’ was a luxury ship”. He went upstairs and sat in the first row of seats on the left-hand side of the bow. She had no one next to her.
“Everything was chaos, screaming, crying, people on the floor with wounds from broken glass”
At 9:40pm, when the boat had just left the port and she was looking at the views of Dalt Vila, she was struck by the speed at which they were travelling. “I mentioned it in a message to my partner. It was going a little faster than normal compared to what I was used to with other ferries,” she says. “After five minutes, boom. We heard a thud as if we had hit another boat. I was in shock,” she recalls. With the force of the collision, she says, she went flying, first propelled forward and then backward. “My stomach hit the table and then I slammed into the wall,” she says. All around her “everything was chaos, screaming, crying, people on the floor with wounds from broken glass…”. To her right she saw a worker who had cut his head open. The scene shocked her.
Image captured after the boat collision. D.I. Erika Peñalba
“I rescued the most seriously injured child”
After putting on the life jacket she had under his seat, she got up and looked out onto the deck, which was covered in blood. She then saw an injured child on the floor. He was the ten-year-old boy who was evacuated by helicopter in a serious condition and is now in the paediatric ICU at Son Espases hospital in Mallorca. Peñalba has first aid qualifications and did not hesitate, attempting to help him along with several crew members. “I tried to get him to talk to me, to listen to me so that he wouldn’t fall unconscious. He had lost a lot of blood and his breathing was very weak, but he was conscious at all times,” she says. “We managed to dress the wound, and we also tried to calm the family,” she adds.
The young woman highlights the exemplary behaviour of the entire crew, who went out of their way to help the passengers. “Even though many of them were injured, they took care of us before they took care of themselves. They helped us, reassured us and gave us water and food,” she says. However, she explains that no one from the company after the accident gave them explanations of what had happened. At 10:45pm the helicopter ‘Helimer 205’ evacuated the most serious minor.
For the full article, please visit Diario de Ibiza website here.