The alarm call was received at the Ibiza Island Fire Station at 12 noon on Thursday. Three workers had been injured by the collapse of the roof of a house they were renovating on Las Lavandas Street, in the Valverde urbanisation of Santa Eulària. The firefighters had little more information. They left, as always, without wasting a second, and what they found on arrival was shocking.
Two of the three workers had already been rescued and helped by their own colleagues. But the third was in a desperate situation. It was no surprise that, once the operation was over, the firefighters remarked among themselves that it was a miracle he was alive. The two injured men who required transfer to hospital were a 53-year-old Senegalese national, who suffered multiple contusions and was discharged the same day shortly before 9 p.m., and a 28-year-old Colombian man who was admitted in serious condition to the Policlínica Nuestra Señora del Rosario.
When they arrived, the firefighters found the latter partially crushed by debris; his legs were not visible. Staff at the Insular Fire Station explained that the first thing they did was check that the structure supporting the collapse —that is, the floor below— was safe. It would not be the first time the ground gave way beneath them while rescuing someone, so the area had to be secured.
Trapped by a concrete slab
They then proceeded to remove as much debris as possible so they could work safely around the injured man. The problem was that he was trapped by a large concrete slab that had to be freed. To do so, they used a rotary saw and specialised tools for dismantling structures. They worked until “they could see the man’s legs”, they said, and from that moment began the rescue itself. They lifted the concrete structure —already cut into pieces— using pneumatic cushions, and cut the iron rods of the beams that held it together. As soon as they managed to free him, they placed him on a special emergency stretcher so that 061 personnel could transfer him urgently to hospital.
The incident occurred at midday, and the firefighters concluded their work at 1:42 p.m. The man had therefore spent around an hour and a half with part of his body trapped under the rubble. “It took us an hour and twelve minutes to extract him,” the firefighters detailed. And he was alive — a real miracle.