A woman who was filmed being swept away by water during the Spanish flooding tragedy has opened up about her miracle survival story.
Conchi Serrano spoke about her ‘horror story’ after being carried out to what she believed was certain death.
Serrano’s video became one of the most viral clips to emerge from the deadly floods, with many wondering what happened to her afterwards.
The Spanish floods have caused carnage in the country, with similar clips arising showing people’s homes and belongings destroyed as well as a heartbreaking video of elderly people in a retirement home stuck in flood water while bound to their wheelchairs.
The floods have brutalised parts of the country (Pablo Blazquez Dominguez/Getty Images)
For Serrano, her nightmare began when she was caught in the floods - which have now taken the lives of over 200 people with dozens still reported as missing.
She's since given an interview on Spanish TV, revealing how she initially ended up in the water.
Serrano explained that people had been shouting that water was coming and turning their cars around.
As her van was a short distance away, she decided to check on it when a ‘torrent of water’ came and as she was trying to get her car documents into her blouse, it swept her away.
Luckily, Serrano received help from a brave local, called Nicolas, who jumped in as she was ‘struggling to breathe’ in the water after letting go of a tree she was clutching.
She said: “I have experienced a real horror story and it’s a miracle I’m alive.
“In the video that’s gone viral, you only see a part of what happened but you can’t imagine what I and a man who jumped into the water to try to help me went through. One thing is telling people what happened and another thing is experiencing it in person.”
Conchi Serrano was caught in the Spanish floods (Solarpix)
Serrano recalled: “The bit you see in the video footage is when I’ve let go of the tree I was holding onto and the water’s sweeping me away and that’s when a man appears who’s holding onto some railings on a ground-floor property and he jumps into the water to try to save me.”
She explained that ‘fate had it that he had a jacket and with the jacket, he grabbed hold of me’.
Once Nicolas had hold of her, she said he told her: “Hold onto me, hold onto me, stay calm, stay calm.”
While Serrano was unharmed during the ordeal, she suffered emotional trauma from her experience.
She explained to a programme called Hoy En Dia: “The water was getting higher and higher and we were at the entrance door to an apartment block with the residents trying to open it. There was no electricity and they couldn’t make the buzzer work that had to be functioning to open it and it was impossible.
“I was shouting out ‘Get a hammer’ but they couldn’t do anything. There when we were staring death in the face, the pressure of the water forced the door open and that saved us. But there was another problem which was that the lift on the ground floor was filling with water and if you got knocked off your feet and fell into the lift you were going to die.”
She has spoken out about the terrifying ordeal (Solarpix)
Serrano continued: “I was being dragged towards the lift as if I was being flushed down a toilet and that man grabbed me again by his jacket, shouting 'No, not the lift, you’re going to die, hold on, hold on, grab hold of the stairwell railings'.
“The railings gave way and my saviour was on the stairs trying with all his strength to pull me up to where he was as I was being dragged towards the lift by the force of the water.”
Another man helped Nicolas and they both pulled Serrano to safety.
Describing how they took care of her, she shared: “They took me up to one of the flats and calmed me down and dried my clothes and gave me blankets and let me call my partner to tell him I was okay.”
Breaking down in tears, Conchi’s older sister Maria added: “I knew immediately when I saw the video footage that it was my sister.
“I know a lot of viewers will know what I’m saying because when you’ve got a sister or a child you love so much, you just know and it was real.
“I’m so sorry for the people who have lost loved ones. I’m lucky enough to be able to say that my sister is safe, my family are safe and healthy.
“Everything else, money, work, doesn’t matter to me when it comes to that.”
English (US) ·