Thousands of hugs, kisses and words of affection. This is what Teresa Curbelo, Benito González and Pablo, eight years old, found at the Guacimeta airport. The couple and their son, survivors of the "Costa Concordia" shipwreck, arrived at Lanzarote airport around 12:00, where they were received by their family and several media outlets. "I haven't screamed or cried yet, now I'm having a worse time, because I'm realizing the magnitude of what has happened," said Teresa. "I feared for my life," she assured.
The family was having dinner on Friday night in one of the ship's restaurants. "We hadn't even finished the first course when suddenly we noticed that the ship had collided with something. It was like when a car hits you from behind, the same movement. The lights went out and the ship began to list. It was like you see in the movie Titanic: the plates were falling, people were running...?" Teresa Curberlo told several media outlets in Terminal 1 of the Guacimeta airport.
At that moment, her son Pablo, 8 years old, had gone to the bathroom. "But he never arrived, because when he was going up the ramp, the impact occurred, and he fell backwards. Luckily we found him among so many people screaming! Because everyone wanted to leave the restaurant," explained Teresa Curberlo. However, the most distressing moment occurred precisely afterwards.
Her husband and son took one path and she took another. Teresa thought they were together, but when she looked back there was no trace of either of them. "He chose to go to the cabin and I to the emergency exit. We got lost for two hours and that was the worst part of all, because I didn't know if they were alive or dead," said this Lanzarote native, who works as a tourist information officer for the Teguise City Council.
Her husband, Benito González, said that he lost his wife on the stairs. "I thought she was going to go to the eighth floor, where our cabin was. The boy was asking for his mother, that was the most distressing thing," he said. Pablo has been sleeping with his parents for three days. "He is very scared."
To reassure the little one, eight years old, Benito told him "that nothing was happening, that everything was a false alarm." "But of course the boy saw people running up and down, people crying and it was impossible to ask him to calm down."
Meanwhile, Teresa was trying to find her family. "You were slipping on the ship because it was listing more and more. You lost your balance. I didn't know where my child or my husband were. I saw people punching each other to get a life jacket. I saw people lying and being stepped on on the floor. I was scared," she said.
In the midst of the chaos, Teresa met several Spaniards whom she had met during her four-day cruise and asked them that if they saw her son and her husband to tell them that she was waiting for them in boat number 17. "A couple saw them and warned them. They appeared there," she said.
"I learned a lot from an Italian lady who had two children. They were shouting: we are going to die. And the lady told them that it was going to be fun, that they were going to get on a small boat, that they were going to get to land. She showed me great strength," she explained. And it is that Teresa heard this conversation in the midst of the chaos, of the "save yourself who can." "People were pushing, hitting each other. I had to squeeze between a woman's legs to get out. I feared for my life. Luckily, my husband and son were calmer."
"Disappearance" of the captain and evacuation
One of the facts that has most outraged this couple is the "disappearance of the captain" of the ship, who was later arrested by the Italian authorities. "He left the ship before us. His voice was not even heard over the loudspeaker. Every time someone spoke, they did so in the name of the captain. They assured that everything was under control, that we should not worry," he said. "But I knew that things were not going well, I knew that it could not be an engine problem. I knew from the beginning that I was sinking," he said. "The ship does not list because an engine stops working, it was because water was entering it."
"The third floor was flooded and the boats were on the fourth floor. I don't know what they were waiting for to get us out of there. I didn't understand anything. The one in the boat, who was a cook, told us that we couldn't leave until they gave us the alarm." Teresa, Benito and Pablo managed, around 00:30 on Friday, to take a lifeboat.
The boats were not enough for everyone, as some had sunk along with the ship. "My boat was full. About 200 people. It doesn't seem like it, but many fit. There were people running and asking us please that they wanted to get on. In my boat there was an Argentine, who was a passenger, who tried to put a little order so that women and children would enter first. He organized everything, because I didn't even see the crew," he said.
Benito González was the last to get on that lifeboat. "They entered like animals, but he understands it, because there everyone was going to save their life." The passengers of the "Costa Concordia" were only 100 meters from the port of the island of Giglio. "We were close to home, to land. At first I was not aware of how close we were to the coast. When I saw the lights on the dock, already inside the boat, I didn't understand why they didn't evacuate us before. If we had been in the high seas and asleep, the victims would have been much more," he denounced.
"When we arrived on land there were people who could not find their relatives. It was horrible. The last boat arrived at 6:00 am. It was like the Titanic, because you could see the lights of the life jackets in the water, people whistling, on the top floor there were people making signals with their mobile phones. It was horrifying," said Teresa.
There, luckily, they found citizen solidarity. "They helped us with everything, although there were no emergencies. It was a very small island, but people turned out. They gave us blankets, water, oranges. They opened the church to be more protected, the pharmacy because there were injured. And in a small hotel they gave us hot coffee," he said.
Complaints against the company
This couple will file a complaint against the shipping company. Like other Spaniards, they plan to take legal action. "I had insurance, and I am going to contact the rest of the Spaniards, because we want to make a joint complaint," announced Teresa Curbelo.
Neither she, nor her husband, nor her son, have any more desire to go on a cruise again. "But not because of everything that has happened. The truth is that we were not liking anything. It was the first time I went on a cruise and I was not liking the experience," she said.
Another thing that has outraged Teresa is the lack of assistance from the Spanish embassy. "Very bad. The German embassy acted so that on the second day all its citizens were in their country. The Japanese provided food, toothbrushes, clothes...? To us, nothing. I had a thin jacket that Civil Protection gave me, and not on the island of Giglio, but to where they transferred us later, before arriving by bus to Rome," explained this woman, tired from the long journey.
This same Monday, Teresa, Benito and Pablo should have arrived in Barcelona, aboard the Costa Concordia. During this day it was planned that the cruise would end. But the journey turned into a nightmare for these Lanzarote natives on the fourth day of the cruise.
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