Hotel Saratoga: End of a Fight

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Hotel Saratoga: End of a Fight
Fecha de publicación: 
13 May 2022
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This is it.

After intense working days, 144 hours in a row, they are back home.

But they are not the same. Some, the youngest, probably saw so many dead people for the first time. And each, rescuers, firefighters, even the most experienced, took with them those image, and especially, the pain.

They arrived 81 seconds after the explosion and, organized by shifts, they never abandoned the place until they found that last corpse.

Most of them, very young men and women, guided by experienced leaders, executed the mission the best they could, with avant-garde techniques, which had never been implemented in Cuba before.

Some, who had already taken part in the rescues of the 2018 plane crash and the 2019 tornado, confessed this had been the hardest.

One of those young rescuers, involved in the two previous disasters, referred to Cuban Television that this was the one that pushed him to the limit for "hearing so many people begging for their lives and not having that super power to get them all out at once."

They were barely able to congratulate their moms on Mother's Day. They forgot birthdays, personal issues. Their pain was that of all of Cuba and they translated it into courage, strength, and they did not give up in the face of fatigue and fear because the whole nation, especially relatives and close friends of the missing people, waited in suspense between anguish and hope.

The top leaders of this Island had indicated as paramount priority finding every missing person. And they could not fail their country.

That is why, although some tears dropped at some point, although the dust, the darkness, the rubble and above all the danger, pushed hard to prevent the search, they never gave up.

The President of Cuba has publicly thanked them. Cuba, dressed in mourning, puts the medal of eternal gratitude on their chests.

Translated by Sergio A. Paneque Díaz / CubaSí Translation Staff

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