"I'm very scared, water is coming in": the judge in the DANA case receives witnesses of deceased telecare users

BarcelonaTranscripts of conversations between victims of the devastating storm in the Valencian Community are increasingly shedding light on the scale of the catastrophe that occurred a year ago amidst the disarray of the Valencian government's emergency response, hampered by President Carlos Mazón's lengthy lunch break. Judge Nuria Ruiz Tobarra, who is investigating the storm's aftermath, has added to the case file the chilling conversations of two people who perished in Utiel and Picanya. These transcripts were officially delivered to the parties involved on Wednesday. The witnesses confirm that users of the service provided by the Valencian Regional Government and the Valencia Provincial Council unsuccessfully called for help. In total, 37 Valencians who were using this service died. One of the transcripts that has been made public is that of a user of the Valencia Provincial Council's telecare service who lived in Picanya. "I'm very scared," the dependent woman states. "My house is full of water," she says. The service representative recommends she get on a sofa or the bed, but she replies that she's already "on the sofa," just before the telecare service tells her not to move and informs her that they will notify the local police. "Please, please!" the woman exclaims. The telecare staff tried to contact the police, but it appears to have been unsuccessful as there is no record of the call. Right after that call, they called a friend of the victim to see if anyone could take care of her, but she was isolated on the second floor. "Doesn't she have any neighbors upstairs who could help her, or are they all just single-story houses?" the telecare service asks. "They're all single-story houses, and the retirement home is on the ground floor; they have nowhere to go," the friend replies. The Provincial Council's service contacted the woman again: "Everything is overloaded. Do you have any neighbors?" they asked, and received the response that the water "is coming in very forcefully." "Go as high up as possible; not on the sofa, to a table," they told her. "I'm on the sofa, but it's coming in," she blurted out. At that critical moment, they told her to "try to go from the sofa to the table": "I'm still asking for help, understand?" they told the woman. "Okay, please, quickly," she begged. Help that would never arrive for a woman who would end up drowning, although the service continued to request assistance, as they responded. After this call, there were about ten attempts to contact 112 from the provincial telecare service, all of which were unsuccessful.

Victim from Utiel

In the other transcript included in the investigation, a woman calls the Generalitat's telecare service in desperation to warn them about her mother, a dependent user, because the area was flooded. "If she's at home, she must be in very bad shape. Because the water's up to her ears. So please see if you can fix it," exclaims the daughter, worried about her mother, who lived in Utiel. "Let's see, I'll try to get through to the address. There's no electricity either, we can't contact him," replies the service operator, promising to "find out something."

After at least six attempts to contact 112, the technician finally gets through: "We have a user in Utiel whose house has flooded. She's 90 years old, and they can't... they're not letting her children in, nor can they contact them. We need to know if the police or the fire department are involved." Then, she gives directions to the victim's address and explains to the 112 emergency services that the telecare service isn't working because there's no electricity and that it's impossible for her to speak with the victim. She then calls the daughter to inform her that they've notified Emergency Services and telephones the local police in Utiel, who tell her to "get to the point because there are a lot of calls." "We're not carrying out rescues," the officers claim, adding that they're routing the calls "at the coordination center." But the calls wouldn't stop, and the victim's daughter was already beginning to admit that she "fears the worst," trapped by uncertainty because they tell her they can't find her mother. The telecare service called her daughter five more times to find out if she had any news of her mother.

Heartbreaking report

A company that manages telecare services recently submitted a report to the judge in Catarroja regarding six deceased users of the system. The report details an initial contact on October 29th, recorded in Utiel—where the Magro River overflowed—at 3:51 PM. Data is available for four users, as in two cases, the activation of the service by the women was not recorded through either personal or family members. The judge had requested the recordings of the calls made on October 29th by six users from the company that manages the service. At 3:51 PM, Mazón had only been at the start of his four-hour lunch with journalist Maribel Vilaplana for three-quarters of an hour.