Ten-year-old train crash survivor Carlota: 'Dad, can I go back to the train to get my language book?'
Her grandmother, who is still missing, had given Carlota and her other grandchildren a trip to Madrid to see the Lion King musical
Carlota, 10, had a language exam on Monday, so she took her language textbook with her and promised her father that she would study during the trip. "As she missed class on Friday, I asked her to take advantage of the journeys to revise," her father Fidel said. Half of his family from Huelva was on the Renfe Alvia train that crashed with the derailed Iryo train near Adamuz (Cordoba province) on Sunday.
With Carlota was her 12-year-old brother and their nine-year-old cousin. Their grandmother, Fidel's mother, had taken them on a trip to Madrid to see the Lion King musical. "She had sold a small piece of land and wanted to enjoy the money with her grandchildren," Fidel said from the nursing home in Adamuz, where he has been waiting to receive any news about his mother, who has been missing since the crash.
Fidel was also supposed to be on the train because his mother, who is in her 80s, could not travel with the children alone. However, in the end, his brother accompanied her and the children. They were due to return home on the Alvia on Sunday night.
Carlota is in hospital. She will have to undergo surgery to fix a fractured femur with plates. She has bruises and other injuries, but is conscious. The other two children were not seriously hurt. Fidel's brother, however, remains in intensive care with a severe head injury.
Fidel has not had any news about his mother. He and numerous other family members of disappeared passengers have been waiting at the nursing home, hoping for some information. The owner of the establishment, Antonio, has not even charged them for a coffee, assisting victims' relatives alongside his children and daughter-in-law in whatever capacity he has.
Fidel's family is Catholic, devoted to the Virgen del Rocío, the brotherhood of which they are part. That is why his sister, when she got in the car with him to go to Adamuz and found out that the children were well, clung to her faith. "My mother is always praying on trips. We are sure she had her rosary in her hand and was praying for everyone. It was a miracle. But she... we still don't know anything," she said.
In the hospital, Carlota told her father that the accident had caught her studying, brushing up on her language skills. Suddenly, there was a kind of earthquake and all the lights went out. There were screams, cries and confusion. Fidel's brother, despite the seriousness of the accident, was able to pull even the last child, his own son, out of a broken window of the carriage.
Fidel's eyes speak of the wear and tear of the hours and of that strange place between the happiness of knowing that his children are okay and the uncertainty and fear of not knowing what has happened to his mother. He can't help remembering the last words his daughter said to him in the hospital: "Dad, can I go back to the train to get my language book?"
