Erwin Thumiri: Double ‘miracle’: Chapcoins van tragedy survivor comes out with 21 deaths without escaping an accident | International

“I do not feel immortal. I’m scared of everything that happened, ”said Erwin Thumiri. This young Bolivian is a survivor. On November 28, 2016, I was traveling on a plane as a team technician Lamia Company What Madeleine crashed from a fuel tank near the airport, Colombia, aboard the Brazilian football team Chapcoins. Of the 6 people rescued, 71 died, including Tumiri. On Tuesday, a bus collided at dawn on the highway connecting the city of Cochabamba with Simora. 21 people were killed in the crash. Erwin Thumiri was in the passage, again with only a few scratches.

“The bus was fast, so I realized something was going to happen,” he says. When the vehicle fell off the road and began to hit the mountain, he knew he had to hold on as hard as he could. Thumiri did not think about his previous accident and he did not have time for it. “I grabbed the seats hard,” he says. When the bus stopped circling, he was able to exit in some way that he could not remember well. “The others did not leave; I do, ”he explains as he apologizes. Four years ago, he was aboard a plane that crashed in Colombia. He even helped an airline assistant. Both are only two living group members.

His story on the Lamia crash has been covered several times by the media, and a few months after it happened, Thumiri, however, refused to give further interviews. His mother chased away any journalist who wanted to interview him. Today Erwin is back in the headlines. Were the two accidents similar to each other? Tumi does not hesitate: “No, they are not the same,” he says.

Tumi, who works today as a Bolivian government official, says God saved him. After Lamia’s accident, he gave his testimony in several churches. “Daddy is God, He is. I ask, Lord, if I am lazy to read literature and even all that, have you blessed me? Sometimes when I am at home I start to think and question things. Carrying that moment is not easy. But, thanks to the many friends I had and those who were with me at the time, I was able to. This is a great blessing for me, ”he told his fellow believers in one of these“ renaissances, ”according to the account of journalist Sergio de la Gerta. Duty.

“My mother was devastated [en el primer accidente]Now she is calm, ”he says calmly. He is recovering in Cochabamba surrounded by his sisters and daughters-in-law, who make contacts with invited journalists from all over the world. Soon he will return to his job at the Directorate of Civil Aeronautics, and like other officers will have to travel again by air and land. Thumiri still wants to fly. If he had been born into a wealthy family, he would undoubtedly have been a pilot.

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