Dayana Patiño was washing dishes in her eighth-floor apartment in La Guaira, Venezuela, when the building began to shake. She ran to hold Juan David, her barely 18-day-old son, a second before everything collapsed.
She was trapped under the concrete, with her left leg pinned and her temple pressed against a rock. In total darkness, every so often she touched the baby’s nose to feel his breathing. “As long as he was alive, I would be too”, she said. That certainty was the only thing that kept her awake and alert for hours.
Her rescue came when she heard her brother shouting her name among the rubble. She gathered her last strength to answer, and he kept his promise: he did not leave until he got her out. Today Juan David has become a symbol of hope for a country that lost more than 2,200 people in the double earthquake.