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A Colombian woman was miraculously found alive at sea after going missing two years earlier. The 46-year-old woman has not spent all this time floating around at sea, but her two-year wanderings had no less dramatic plot.
When a fisherman suddenly sees a half-unconscious woman bobbing on your regular waterway: you only experience that once in your life. It happened to Rolando Visbal Lux, who was fishing last Saturday near the coast of Colombian Puerto Colombia. “My friend Gustavo told me to watch out for that tree trunk, but when I turned a little to the right, I saw that the trunk was moving. At first I thought it was something alien, ”Rolando told local radio station Radio Caracol. The moving tree trunk turned out to be neither an alien nor a mermaid, but 46-year-old Angelica Gaitan who waved her last strength for help.
“God didn’t want me to die”
Rolando and friend Gustavo decided to come to the aid of the woman. In modern times, of course, the rescue operation also had to be captured on film, which resulted in spectacular images. The video that Rolando himself shared on his Facebook (can be viewed below) shows how they try to call the woman, but she barely responds – from extreme fatigue and hypothermia, as it turned out afterwards. Eventually, the two men manage to get Angelica aboard with the help of a rope and the lifebuoy they threw her. At the end of the video you can see how Angelica bursts into tears. Her first words reportedly were, “I am born again. God didn’t want me to die. ”
Angelica was taken to the coast by the fishermen where she was cared for by locals before being taken to hospital. The woman, who floated at sea for a total of 8 hours, told RNC radio her story afterwards. According to her, she left her family two years ago because her husband had been abusing her for 20 years. “The abuse started during the first pregnancy. He hit me, he abused me, ”she revealed in the shocking interview. “During my second pregnancy the abuse continued. I couldn’t leave him because our daughters were still little. ”
Domestic violence
Angelica claims that she reported several times to the police who also arrested her husband, but he was released every 24 hours. He then returned home, where intimate partner violence continued. In September 2018, the time was full for Angelica when her husband smacked her face black and blue and “tried to kill her”. She fled to Barranquilla, a town nearby where she was eventually found at sea. There she managed to survive for six months without shelter. She was eventually taken to a shelter, but after a while she was thrown out again because her partner did not live in the same city.
It was all too much for Angelica. Borrowing money from a passer-by, she took the bus to the coast, where she jumped off the rocks to kill herself. But the attempt failed, and 8 hours later she was found exhausted at sea. Angelica says she doesn’t remember much of those hours.
According to La Libertad newspaper, her family confirms that they have not heard from her since 2018. They claim that Angelica then went to her brother in Ecuador. But Angelica’s daughter, Alejandra Castiblanco, denies the story. According to her, her mother had heart problems for years, and her mental health deteriorated after a heart attack. According to Alejandra, there is no question of partner violence and abuse. Alejandra and her sister are now collecting money to be able to fly their mother to the capital Bogota. The police is investigating the case.
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