MADRID — A firefighter who helped rescue the only three children to survive the Spanish airliner crash that killed 153 people has been hailed as a hero.
Francisco Martinez told reporters that when he arrived at the crash, the mother of one of the children, 41-year-old Amalia Filloy, told him to rescue her daughter, Maria. Ms Filloy did not survive.
“Her mother handed her to us … and the woman stayed behind. There were too few firefighters at the beginning,” he told reporters after visiting Maria, 11, who has a broken leg, at a Madrid hospital. “The girl was totally disoriented, she did not complain or talk despite the great number of serious injuries which she had,” he told Spanish radio on Thursday.
Full story: Save my daughter: mother’s last words to fireman