Hell. Horror. Complete absence of those responsible. Lives that are not the same for anyone. A mother's agony to save her child. The struggle not to watch her only son die in front of her. And then the calvary in the hospitals. The horrible pain. And somewhere in there a voice on TV saying that everything was all right...
All this is just part of yet another riveting testimony heard moments ago in the courtroom before which the trial of the deadly fire in Mati is taking place.
The shocking testimony
On the witness stand Kallie Anagnostou who was burned herself and her child. With visible scars on her body she described with tears in her eyes what she and her child experienced. Not a breath could be heard in the room. Only her own voice. Only her own sobs. And at the end of her testimony, with the court's permission, the voice of her son, who is almost ten years old today and has been deprived of everything that his peers are living, because some people did nothing to save the residents of Mati.
"My husband and my son and I came from Dubai to avoid being burned by the heat and finally we came here and were burned alive. We were hugging my son and we were discussing about the extinction of species. At that time I had promised that we would go to the planetarium. Around five o'clock and I woke up to smoke. As I was with the child in my arms and looking at the cell phone for an event near our area. It wasn't the first time there had been events in the area. It was the first time no one came," the witness said."
By the time the flames had reached their house he took the child and left. "We were burning. This can't be happening. It's a nightmare dream movie. It was my nightmare. I yelled to my child 'Costa we're leaving now'. No one told us to leave. My child starts screaming 'Mommy what are we going to do? Mommy are we going to die?" And I tell him 'get dressed we're leaving'. We don't have a choice. We could see the flames in the trees around us. Quarter to six. The watch I was wearing had metal in it and it burned my skin. I was more frozen by the sight of the flames coming at me. Can anyone realize the horror? No one. Because they weren't there. We were there and we lived it.
" And we both fall down and he starts screaming 'Mommy I'm burning'... I realized he didn't have his shirt on... As we run his legs are melting and I can't tell him. He's screaming 'mommy help me' and 'mommy save me'. My only way of showing him this is to not hug him because if I did that, we would be the first ones to find a hug. We were alone and burning. The only voice and screaming was my child's. A voice I have inside me. Even now I am afraid to hold him in my arms."
"People were screaming for help and no help was coming. We didn't exist then. Just like we didn't exist afterwards in essence. Our losses were negligible. The children screaming. At one point I saw the sea and thought I should go in to cool off but I didn't want my child to see me dying in front of him because if I fell in I wouldn't be able to swim and I would drown. We had a bottle of water and we were sharing the drops," he added.
How she saved her child
Immediately afterwards she described the superhuman efforts she made between life and death and with the help of people who were on the spot to save her child who was her only concern even in the moments when she was unconscious and fainting from the burns.
"With all this I was no longer living. They talk to me and say she won't get it off... I waited... Nothing. I prayed that my child would survive and be okay. At some point a private van shows up... In all this time no one came. He decides to put us in so we can leave. The three of us get in and we start to leave. He keeps telling us to be patient, we'll get there. The kids will take us. There were two Jupiter police officers who came alone because they heard they were burning downstairs and they came. They heard it over the radios, which some people couldn't hear. They took us to the Cismanoglio. Another calvary. What we experienced was not physical harm, but... Fatal exposure. And if we hadn't arrived on our own, we'd be dead. They put me on a stretcher and with a pair of scissors they cut off my clothes. I'm on a stretcher in the hallway and across from me I have a door open and they were putting bags in there that were stuck on top of each other. I knew it. I don't know how others didn't know. I was waiting to find out about my child. I don't know if he lived. If he knows about me. They had him in the emergency room at St. Sophia's. A five and a half year old baby who only knew us dad and mom and grandparents and suddenly had none of us. A baby alone asking for us and we're not there. A baby who gets poked and prodded, poked and poked with tubes ... No one expected me to live."
" They took me to the emergency room at Yenimatas and all of a sudden doctors and nurses came in and one of them comes in and says 'squeeze'. They were pulling my skin and I started screaming. I almost broke my arm. I couldn't take it because I knew this was what my child was going through. The doctors' fear was that I wouldn't die of shock. Whatever I was going through, I thought my child was going through it. And then I heard on TV that everything was fine and that we were going to do it the same way again. The dead and us are living proof that it all worked out. I told them send me to the House to see how well they did. For the next few days I was wrapped in bandages. Burned everywhere. Unable to move my arms. Stinging and aching. They filled me with tubes. And while I'm there in the bag I start to think my lungs can't take it. They intubated me. I just wanted to say goodbye to my kid. Tell him I love him. To hear it one last time. They intubated me and took me to Triage. My kid's burned, his back, his arms, his legs. He's a wild man. The baby that was a godsend. He was asking where his mama was. They couldn't tell him she was dying. They told him Mommy was sleeping, but he kept asking, 'Why won't she talk to me? Have I done something to her?'
" The physical injuries will follow us forever, Ms. Anagnostou said. "We won't be able to have a normal life. We will have to be treated. My child could not and cannot play and be called like other children. He doesn't have the childhood life like any other child. He wakes up with nightmares. He relives it over and over and over again. And to know that he will not have a life like other children .He wakes up and says my little hands my little feet you are not like before. He wants to know the details of why this happened? What excuses can you give a child? He didn't see an apology. I was apologized to by the physical therapist when I was being changed by the doctor who admitted what is happening to my body is rape. At some point I told him to let me go. Rape of body and soul over and over again. The same suffering. The hell of fire was not enough, we had to experience the hell of the hospital. We live in bodies where we are prisoners, we who are the burned. For four years no one has slept well. My child is screaming. For two years he sleeps with his daddy so he doesn't scratch and bleed. But still in the morning he's covered in blood. His body is not restored. As he grows taller this skin tears...who will do it justice? I have surgeries ahead of me and I don't do them so he won't see me like this...
All of my son's pain doesn't stay like this. I owe it to him. I owe it to all children and all people. I belong to the category of those who have lived it all....Let this truth come out and finally do something and let it never happen again."
And before rising from the podium, she asked the court to hear her son's voice. "He asked me to bring his voice in here. He cannot come himself. I want you to allow me..."
From the cell phone came his voice... "My life before the fire was better, now it's not. We're burned and not happy. My dad was saved because he wasn't here. Nobody is not happy when they burn. We hope you will be told to leave your homes when there is a fire."
Source: in.gr
Contents of this article including associated images are belongs Cyprus Times
Views & opinions expressed are those of the author and/or Cyprus Times
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