The tragedy death of José Solano This is a moving story of the tragedy that occurred at DANA in Valencia 18 days ago. Pepe, to his family and friends, was Montillanohad Alzheimer’s and died at 71 years old drowned in his house in Alfafar due to the impossibility of accessing the upper floor of his house alone and the brutal inability of his wife, Conchi, to lift him alone from the bed in which he had been bedridden for two years.
Tony Solano He is her cousin and tells ABC what happened that night. He does this mainly so that the story of Pepe “and the many vulnerable people who died in this situation, does not repeat itself.” He does it with “rage» and with “impotence“, he reiterates to us during the telephone conversation, because “if the alarm notification had arrived ten minutes earlier, Pepe would have been saved“.
José Solano was born in Montilla. His father, like many Spaniards, had to go to work in Germany. It was fundamental for the future of his son Pepe. The family returned to Montilla for a while, but eventually decided to go for beans in Valencia. Pepe found work ford when he opened his factory in Valencia, largely thanks to “his knowledge of German”, explains Toni. This allowed him to occupy “a position of responsibility” until his retirement.
Your life
He lived his life in Alfafar with his wife Conchi until his last breath. He didn’t have any children, but he did have his sister Mila, who also lives in Alfafar and “he still takes care of Pepe’s mother, who is still alive at 90 years old, also has suffered from Alzheimer’s disease for over a decade and still doesn’t know what happened to her son.”
Precisely, “the day of DANAmy cousin’s wife went out to throw out the trash and saw that water was starting to flow into the streets, even though it wasn’t raining there. At that moment, “he called Pepe’s sister to help him take him to the upper floor of the house, but it was impossible for him to cross a flooded underpass with his car to get to the house” .
The result was very quick, says Toni. “In five minutes, the water floodedwith furniture floating next to the bed my cousin was in; His wife shouted to a neighbor to help her lift Pepe, but they were also stuck in their homes; “She held him until the water reached her neck, when she had to climb the plant to save herself and watch helplessly as the water overwhelmed her husband.”
Drama
Toni Solano is devastated, like the whole family. He was also born in Montilla. He went to Valencia when he was only four years old. Today he is the director of a school in Castellón and he says with pain that very hard days followed Pepe’s death. “When the water fell that morning, the neighbors rescued his wife through the roof windows.” They still had a tragedy ahead of them: “The next day, neighbors confirmed that he had died on the ground, They put him on the bed and covered him with a sheet.“.
Pepe and Conchi, in a self-portrait
However, “it took them two days to take him away because he had a car stuck at his house, which made it impossible for him to get out.” Then, “they arrived at the morgue and it took ten days to deliver him to us.” Toni regrets that “his wife has not yet been able to complete her mourning, because the cemetery of Alfafar and the surroundings are not yet suitable to be operational. For this reason, “Until this Sunday, we were unable to hold an event at a funeral home. from Valencia and they cremated him, but we are still waiting for him to rest in a niche in the cemetery.
Toni remembers that “my cousin was very religious and loved flamenco”, so “as long as he could, he would go to Montillawhere I think he bought an apartment which he still maintained. NOW. He reiterates that what happened must serve “to learn”, because he believes that the end of his cousin “is a tragedy and another story for many people”. vulnerableadults and children, who died and would have been saved if the warning had come a few minutes earlier; They died at home, where one feels safest; cannot be repeated“.
