Can you imagine spending 192 hours trapped in the absolute darkness, without water, without food, and feeling the concrete crush your bones and your hopes? 😭💔
Hernán Gil lived through the worst human nightmare firsthand after the brutal earthquake. When rescuers were no longer searching for survivors but for corpses, the impossible happened.
His heartbreaking testimony of how he managed to cling to life at the edge of madness will give you goosebumps.
Hernán Gil, 43, was working as a security guard in the basement of a residence in Catia La Mar when the earth shook with a magnitude of 7,5 and the building collapsed on top of him. He did not run. He got under a table and a chair, and that instinctive gesture was what kept him alive for eight whole days.
Outside, rescue teams from seven countries dug tirelessly. It took more than 100 hours of work until they opened a three-meter tunnel and reached him. Gil came out with a dislocated clavicle, some bruises, but conscious and speaking.
From his bed at Hospital de Clínicas Caracas, he said that in the darkness he never stopped talking to God. “I know it was a miracle”, he said.
His wife, Gusbimar González, and his children were already waiting for him on the other side of the video call.
Hernán Gil’s story is a raw and at the same time beautiful reminder that life can change in a second, but also that the human will, connected to faith, is capable of breaking any law of physics. Trapped in hell, he found heaven.