Gulf | Yemen
Daring sea rescue saved teen after Yemenia plane crash
A teenage girl who was plucked from the sea after a Yemeni jetliner carrying 153 people crashed into the Indian Ocean on Tuesday was being treated in a hospital in the Comoros islands, a Red Cross spokeswoman said, as details of her dramatic rescue emerged.
- Agencies
- Published: 09:28 July 1, 2009
- Image Credit: AP
- Unidentified relatives of passengers react, after being shown the list of passengers on board the crashed Yemenia jet.
Moroni: A teenage girl who was plucked from the sea after a Yemeni jetliner carrying 153 people crashed into the Indian Ocean on Tuesday was being treated in a hospital in the Comoros islands, a Red Cross spokeswoman said, as details of her dramatic rescue emerged.
The Airbus jet crashed as it attempted to land amid severe turbulence and howling winds.
"The girl, aged 14, has arrived at the El Maarouf hospital. We were told that her condition is not worrisome," Red Cross spokeswoman Ramulati Ben Ali said.
A policeman identified as one of the girl's rescuers told France's Europe 1 radio that the teenager was seen swimming in choppy waters in the middle of bodies and plane debris around 0100 GMT. "We tried to throw a life buoy. She could not grab it. I had to jump in the water to get her," the rescuer said.
"She was shaking, shaking. We put four covers on her. We gave her hot, sugary water. We simply asked her name, village." The doctor who treated her at the hospital said she was being cared for at the intensive care unit.
"She is conscious, she is speaking, but we are trying to warm her up because she was freezing," the doctor, Ada Mansour, said. "We are trying to get her back in shape, but we are not asking her too many question as not to tire her," he said.
The girl lives in the French southern city of Marseille and was travelling with her mother to the Comoros, according to a Comoran community group in France. Abdullah Ebrahim, the Marseille coordinator of the Comoros Solidarity Union, said that airport authorities in Moroni identified the girl as Bakari Baya.
"Depending on her condition, she could be evacuated to France or Madagascar," Ibrahim said.
The girl lives with her family, including an uncle, in Marseille's 14th district, he said. A Comoran government spokesman also confirmed that the girl was the only survivor so far and that she was originally from the southeast village of Nioumadzaha.
"She is conscious, she is speaking, but we are trying to warm her" after being pulled from cold sea waters, said Ada Mansour, the examining doctor at the hospital where the girl is being treated. Mansour added that the earlier reports of a five-year-old boy surviving the crash were "based on information received from boats near the search site. But I have not seen him."
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