A month after a powerful 7.4-magnitude earthquake shook Colombia, survivor Camilo Oyola is sharing a harrowing account of how his two dogs, Kahlo and Picasso, saved his life. Oyola says the animals seemed to sense the disaster coming, waking him and nudging him out of bed at 7:34 a.m., just before his apartment building, the Ana Pilar in Cali, came crashing down around him.
He recalls the structure buckling violently before collapsing entirely, leaving him trapped in a fetal position beneath broken concrete with a beam pinning his hip. Certain he was about to die, Oyola called out for his dogs but got no response — until he heard a mournful howl, which he believes came from Picasso mourning Kahlo’s death. Neither dog survived the collapse.
Buried and disoriented, Oyola says the most extraordinary sound of his life came minutes later, when he heard rescuers shouting, “Is anyone alive?” through a megaphone. As responders searched the rubble, their movement shifted the beam pinning him just enough to fracture his pelvis and dislocate his femur — an unavoidable consequence, he says, of rescuers doing their job.
Now recovering in a wheelchair with wounds across his body, Oyola says the tragedy taught him that material possessions vanish instantly, but love and human connection are what truly matter. Read the full account at El Tiempo.
Source: El estremecedor relato de Camilo Oyola sobre cómo sus perros le salvaron la vida el día del terremoto (eltiempo.com). English version produced with AI assistance.
Image: uair01, BY 2.0 (via Openverse).