“Again I can’t believe it”: the shocking story of Erwin Tumiri, the survivor of the Chapecoense plane who was rescued from another tragedy

Erwin Tumiri could be the star of an action movie. Tom Cruise, Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sylvester Stallone could embody this Bolivian who in less than five years was the victim of two fatal accidents which killed dozens of people: the tragedy of Chapecoense and the breakdown of a bus in Cochabamba this week.

The 30-year-old man was injured in a traffic accident that left 21 people dead in Bolivia. “I crawled, my knee was injured, I sat down and said, again, I can’t believe it,” he told the newspaper. Time after suffering superficial injuries, for which he is still admitted to a hospital in Cochabamba.

The bus crash happened Tuesday morning on a highway between Cochabamba and Santa Cruz, where a passenger bus fell from a cliff about 150 meters deep, killing 21 and injuring 30. “The bus was moving, there I took the front seat, I knew we were going to crash, because we were going at high speed,” said the mechanic. “I continued to hold on, I did not disperse until we hit the ground, ”he added.

After the accident, rescuers came to help the injured, the mechanic said. “He was not unconscious. I think I was the first to go upstairs, ”he said. “I feel blessed. Always give thanks to God,” he said.

Tumiri was part of the crew of the plane of the company LaMia, registered in Bolivia, which crashed on November 28, 2016 near Medellín with the Brazilian team. Chapecoense had to play his first South American Cup final against Colombian club Atlético Nacional.

The Colombian investigation concluded that the Avro RJ85 vessel had crashed due to lack of fuel. 71 people died in the crash, including 19 team players, as well as most of their board of directors. Alongside Tumiri, three footballers survived, Bolivian air hostess Ximena Suárez and Brazilian journalist Rafael Henzel, who died in March 2019 of a heart attack.

In 2019 he said Infobae what that experience was like on the plane: “I only heard the sound of the wind, because the doors had been depressurizedTumiri said and continued, “I was looking for what could be the fault, because the water was already coming in, because it was raining, it was coming in through the door. The lack of gasoline shut down the engines and it took all the energy of the plane, which was sliding uncontrollably towards its terrible destination. “The lights went out, I saw nothing, I got wet by the door and it all happened like a dream, like a nightmare“.

“I remained squatting and When I got up I could only see mud and blood stained all over the plane», He remembers.

In this lecture, he explained that tragedy was an opportunity God gave him to preach his wordHowever, he made no secret of his anger when he spoke of the corruption that existed behind LaMia: “There are a lot of injured family members, so don’t cover that up. It makes me a little angry because a lot of people, I also speak on behalf of the crew, they are injured. For all the boys who were there, the footballers, I don’t know what they will really be like. But he is sorry that he cannot find a solution. The deceased will not be delivered alive, but there must be a reason. You have to go to the bottom“.

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