Rulian Dias watched as the water swallowed his home in Mimoso do Sul, Brazil, in March 2024. His wife Elivanda was eight months pregnant and there was no raft at hand. So he looked at his double-door refrigerator, emptied it, and put her inside.
He swam alongside her to guide her through the current, but the force of the water ended up flipping the refrigerator over. Elivanda had to swim nearly a kilometer on her own until the couple managed to climb onto a neighbor’s roof and wait for rescue.
They lost everything they had. But a month later, Elivanda gave birth to a healthy baby girl: Maya. Sometimes surviving is not the end of the story, but the beginning of a new life.