A senior woman has been rescued after being stranded next to a river for seven days!
Zimbabwe – An evacuation team have “broken the rules” and went out of their way to rescue and return an elderly woman to her family after the Cyclone Idai devastation!
Intense Tropical Cyclone Idai is regarded as one of the worst tropical cyclones on record to affect Africa and the Southern Hemisphere as a whole. The long-lived storm caused catastrophic damage in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi, leaving more than 700 people dead, thousands missing and over 3 million people displaced. In the Southern Hemisphere, it currently ranks as the second deadliest tropical cyclone on record, having a death toll comparable to that of the 1892 Mauritius cyclone!
The tenth named storm and record-breaking eighth intense tropical cyclone of the 2018–19 South-West Indian Ocean cyclone season, Idai originated from a tropical depression that formed off the east coast of Mozambique on 4 March. The storm made landfall in Mozambique later in the day and remained a tropical cyclone through its trek over land.
Idai brought strong winds and caused severe flooding in Madagascar, Mozambique, Malawi, and Zimbabwe, which has killed over 7oo people and affected more than 3 million others.
But in-between the devastation; heartfelt stories are also surfacing.
Just yesterday an Ambulance and Air Evacuation Service based in Harare, Zimbabwe rescued and returned a senior woman who had been stranded for seven days.
Ace Ambulance Services have been on the ground since the Cyclone hit Zimbabwe and have saved countless lives during the past few days. The rescue team heard of a senior woman who had been stranded at a bridge for seven days waiting for someone to help her, and they immediately jumped into action!
The woman’s age was unknown, but they were told that she was an elderly Ambuya (Gogo in Shona) who desperately needed help. She had been waiting next to the bridge for help after the entire pathway across the river was washed away in the severe storms. She had been stranded there for seven days.
The rescue team raced to where she was, found her and got her safely back over the river. They then decided to break the rules and reunite the senior citizen with her desperate family 25km away up the mountain using the rescue helicopter.
They knew that her family would have been so incredibly worried about her and wanted to get her back to them.
“Well done team, you make us proud, and to Ambuya, we wish you happiness and safety back home!”
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