Heartbreaking, this is the testimony of the 12-year-old Cuban boy, Abram Daniel González Hernández, who is recovering from injuries sustained during the floods in San Antonio del Sur due to the passage of Hurricane Oscar.
Resident in the locality of Macambo, in statements to Cuban television, the minor recounted from the Pedro Agustín Pérez Pediatric Hospital in Guantánamo how that dawn unfolded when he woke up amidst the flooding and the subsequent events.
"It was 'a little bit of rain,' but not heavy," he said in reference to the rain at the time they went to sleep.
"We stayed, but when I woke up, the water was already up to a foot and started to rise. We went up to the 'sticks.' The house sank, I was able to get out, and my family did too," explained the minor.
"My mom's hand slipped from mine. That's when I hit my head on a coconut tree. I held on, I was able to climb up, and I felt cold," Abram Daniel recounted about those very tough moments when he broke free from his mother and how he managed to hold onto a coconut tree.
However, the plant gave way and it was while falling that the minor got injured.
"The coconut tree started to sway, and when I jumped, my leg got caught," he described the serious injury to his left leg that led him to undergo surgery once he was rescued.
"I went out to sea," he/she related.
In his efforts to survive, the boy recounted that he saw "two rocks" where the waves did not "crash so hard," and there he was able to climb to dry land.
He arrived in Yacabo, from where he went to Macambo, and he went to a neighbor's house on the beach, where a military doctor attended to him.
After receiving first aid in San Antonio del Sur, the boy arrived on Tuesday afternoon at the provincial Pediatric Hospital, where a multidisciplinary team decided on surgical intervention for his left leg due to a wound showing signs of sepsis, fever, and necrotic tissue.
"We proceeded to perform a surgical debridement of the wound, and fortunately, there were no bone or muscle injuries; the lesion was confined to the skin and the subcutaneous cellular tissue," reported Dr. Evis Navarro Pérez.
The wound is clean. Now the minor is in good general condition, receiving antibiotic treatment according to the type of injury he has, and after 16 hours of evolution, everything indicates a favorable progression.
"The wound is clean and odorless, which indicates that the recovery will be positive," added Navarro.
The child is being cared for by his grandmother. It is unclear what happened to the child's mother. The official report does not clarify this.
After the devastating passage of Hurricane Oscar through the province of Guantánamo, the testimonies of those affected cast doubt on the official figures provided by Cuban authorities, which report only seven fatalities as the official toll.
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