October 3, 2022, 8:49 AM
October 3, 2022, 8:49 AM
“It was the first time” that he attended a football match, Etik says anxiously, barely holding back tears. Her daughter has been hospitalized and unconscious since the stampede at a soccer stadium in the Indonesian city of Malang, which killed at least 125 people.
Sitting cross-legged in front of the intensive care unit Saiful Anwar hospital, waits for her daughter, Dian Puspita, to wake up.
The 21-year-old narrowly escaped death in the tragedy that occurred in this city in the east of the island of Java. During the melee, she was caught in the crowd and nearly suffocated in a cloud of tear gas fired by police. The movement of the crowd was compounded as fans rushed towards the exits in a panic.
Etik became concerned when Dian didn’t return as scheduled on Saturday night. “I had to return around 11:30 p.m. I called her, but she didn’t answer“, remember.
Finally, Etik managed to communicate with a friend of his daughter, who told him about the episodes of violence that occurred after the game.
The woman then went to the hospital, where she came across a picture of horror. His daughter had a broken shoulder and a red, swollen face.
“I didn’t think this was going to happen” he says, still in shock, after waiting 12 hours at the site.
“I didn’t know which team Arema would play against. I found out that the rival was the Persebaya“Just in the hospital,” he says.
The stampede occurred when fans of the local team Arema FC entered the Kanjuruhan stadium after losing 3-2 against Persebaya Surabaya, the neighboring city.
In the same hospital, Irgi Firdiansah, 20, remembers carrying Dian Puspita out of the stadium, when he too I was trying to survive at the moment of panic of the crowd.
The place “It was full of smoke. I couldn’t see anything,” account crying
Panicking, he says he was pushed, immobilized and then trapped in the stampede when he tried to reach the exit of the stadium.
His hands are full of injuries for being trampled by the crowd. But Irgi Firdiansah was one of the lucky ones because he managed to escape, taking Dian with him out of the stadium.
“I kept holding on to her, toAlthough I didn’t know his status“, the survivor mutters in a low voice, visibly affected by the incident.
After the match, chaos invaded the hospitalwhich had to deal with a massive influx of victims.
among the victims there are at least 32 children. And at least 323 people were also injured.
many victims died due to lack of oxygen suffocated or trampled by the public.
When night came, the relatives of the victims were still in front of the hospital, lying on mattresses waiting for news.
While some prayedothers decided to settle in some beds inside the hospital to spend the night.
From time to time, a name was called through a megaphone, a sign of good or bad news for families.
Before his daughter’s transfer to the intensive care unit, Etik took her hand and whispered in her ear: “You have to be strong and wake up soon.”
you want these words
