Omayra Sanchez was 13. Thoughts of an impending math exam made her anxious.
Her small town of 25,000 in Armero, Colombia sat next to a volcano that had been dormant for a seemingly negligible amount of time. A few geologists, however, had measured foreshadowing earthquakes around the site of the volcano and warned Armero officials to vacate its citizens. The warnings were unheeded. On November 13 the volcano’s eruption sent massive mudslides raging into town, causing the death of more than two-thirds of it’s inhabitants in a matter of minutes.
Although managing to escape immediate death from the violent lahars that had swept away most of her families and friends, her legs were pinned down by bricks and the arms of her deceased aunt clutching tightly onto her leg as she sat stuck in a kneeling position, most of her body submerged in muddy waters. Journalists and survivors started to work to free her from the waters, but after hours of struggle it was to no effect. Amputation became necessary. Lacking the proper medical equipment to treat her, however, her survival from the surgery would less than 5%.
They consoled her instead. She remained calm in her first hours. She sang lullabies and talked with journalists, asking for sweets and soda, which they managed for her.
After two days the effects of her body’s prolonged submersion in water became evident in gangrene. Her hands turned a pale white. Poor circulation caused the pupils of her eyes to turn a dark, warm black. She became fearful but remain dignified, asking her supporters to get some rest.
She wept at times, and rightfully so.
Omayra Sanchez was 13. She hallucinated being late for school and asked to be taken, mentioning a math exam.
She remained in the waters for 60 hours until finally succumbing, three days after the Nevado del Ruiz volcano had erupted.
Omayra Sanchez, August 29, 1972 - November 16, 1985
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