Unpublished testimony of a medical student who survived the explosion in Matanzas

One year after the tragic accident in theMatanzas Supertanker BaseAn unpublished video has come to light in which a medical student who survived the accident told her testimony.

In aconversationof Karema and her mother with the researcher and professorMabel Cuesta, the actor Jorge Ferdecaz and the photographer Néster Núñez, the young woman confessed that, in her fourth year of studying Medicine, she was a member of the Rescue and Rescue Corps to, if there were injuries, assist them.

His anecdote about that August 5 when the explosion occurred in the fuel tanks of the Supertanker Base was heartbreaking.

Having lied to the mother and her boyfriend, he tried to appease his family's concerns by assuring that he was very far from the area but was only 40 or 50 meters from the tank.

The young woman was assigned to the fire area to provide first aid at the scene, from behind the first ring of fire, supporting the firefighters.

A miracle survivor, as she herself expressed, the warning from her colleagues saved her life before the explosion of the second fuel tank that caught fire in the early hours of August 6.

"We saw the change in color and heard the noise the tank was making, that's when we realized it and we all ran," Karema said, referring to the words of his colleagues on the Red Cross team who warned of the next explosion.

Karema's testimony, until now unpublished, revives one of the most tragic episodes in Cuba in recent years, where 17 people died, including recruits who were completing Active Military Service.

The student suffered burns on both arms. Like her, her boyfriend and other medical students were mobilized to assist the injured at the scene.

Recently, a Cuban, father of one of the young men who were doing Active Military Service and were sent to put out the fire, also revealed achilling message that his son communicated to him during the tragedy.

Ariel Aragón Vargas, father of the young man now a student of Cybernetics at the University of Havana, said that the words spoken by his son still impact him.

"Dad, this is very hot, my hair on my arm is burning," his son, Lázaro Javier, told him after being assigned to the scene of the accident. The man, when recalling the fateful event, expressed that his desperation led him to go to the scene to try to help in the midst of the catastrophe.