Zebenzui Cabrera, skipper of the Salvamar Navia of Maritime Rescue, was off duty when last May 28 a canoe capsized at the La Restinga dock (El Hierro) and caused the death of seven people, but he was at the port and without hesitation jumped into the sea, a decision that saved lives.
At the port he witnessed how the boat turned around and how, in the midst of the chaos, no one had yet been able to help a father and his baby who were in trouble. It was at that moment, "without hesitation", when he decided to jump into the water: "Any colleague would have done the same", he asserts in an interview with EFE.
And in fact they did. During the hour that the rescue lasted, he was accompanied by more Maritime Rescue personnel, divers from companies working in the port and several National Police officers.
With them, Cabrera has shared these days visits to the health center for the after-effects of the rescue, such as numbness and fever in the first days, cuts all over the body or intoxication from having been swimming for too long in fuel and waste.
Pulling a child out by the feet
After jumping in and putting several people to safety, Cabrera still tells acceleratedly how he got out of the water to put on a rescue team and how he submerged again to pull out more people non-stop, both those splashing on the surface and, in a more complex way, from inside the barge, where air bubbles had formed and there were survivors.
The characteristics of the boat made everything more complicated. This is pointed out by Cabrera, who points out that it is not normal for boats of only 3 meters in beam to arrive, compared to the usual 4 or 5 meters, and with a deck, two unusual elements that explain a good part of the fatal outcome.
The canoe was one of the long ones, with 20 meters in length, but especially narrow. And if he was able to rescue people from inside the barge once it capsized, he says, it is because after half a lifetime at sea and eight years in Maritime Rescue, he knows what a boat is like inside.
"I pulled a child out by the feet who didn't want to come out -of the air bubble- and I had to pry three times because he was scared to death and didn't want to put his head in the water. It's pure instinct, but to get him out he had to submerge," says Cabrera, who at that moment was also able to help a woman who was also inside and grabbed onto his foot.
He was also able to extract another man who was left below. After that last rescue he admits that he "popped" and reached the limit: "I was about to faint and asked for relief," says Zebenzui Cabrera, who recalls how when he got out of the water he burst into tears of impotence and anger at not being able to get more people out.
He was still thinking about one of the babies, "who seemed dead", but who nevertheless survived after being transferred by helicopter to Tenerife.
"The problem is that you play God"
Situations like the baby's, he adds, "kill you", but once the worst has passed and you start to manage what happened and the emotional burden "you realize that everything can't be perfect and that the strange thing is that it turned out reasonably well".
"The problem with this is that you play God and if you save one you lose two or if you save two you lose one. You can't get to everything and if you're going to torture yourself for what happened and not for what you've achieved... this job isn't for everyone," he reflects.
Cabrera asserts that the fact that there had been dozens of lifebuoys on the dock for a few weeks, which he himself used to get people out without putting himself in danger, was decisive in saving more lives.
He also regrets that there have been those who have used the tragedy to question the protocols of Maritime Rescue or the work they do both on the high seas and on the dock. "Anyone can criticize by watching the bulls from the barrier. It's easy to play knowing the cards, but there are people who should evaluate what they have said because I don't think they have understood the situation that was experienced or the characteristics of the dock and this canoe in particular," he concludes.
This Rescue skipper recalls that the most critical moments in a rescue are always the boarding of the ship, which usually lasts no more than two or three minutes, at most, sometimes even less. "But for us they are hours. I have had rescues of 57 seconds that have seemed eternal to me," he details.
"When they arrive on land, what they want is to get off the boat. They come from a hard journey, they are scared, they don't know how to swim sometimes... But they also have adrenaline that shoots up and they try to cling to life," Cabrera summarizes.
