Scenes of extreme danger unfolded in Upper Glyfada, where severe storms turned the streets into raging torrents filled with mud and rocks. Amid the chaos, one woman was literally saved at the last moment thanks to the selfless actions of two men, while just a few blocks away another woman was swept away by the waters and lost her life.
The video from the dramatic rescue quickly circulated across news outlets and social media. It shows the woman being swept into the torrent, with one man holding her and trying to lift her up, while a second rushes to help under extremely difficult conditions.
Glyfada: “Rocks were coming at her, it would have been easy for something terrible to happen”
Mr. Oikonomopoulos is the first man who appears in the video and spoke to MEGA about the incident that took place yesterday, Wednesday (21/1) in Upper Glyfada where the streets were “drowned” in mud. “I saw the lady stopped in a white car. She was terrified. I spoke to her and told her ‘don’t cross, go the other way.’ She responded but I couldn’t hear her over the noise the water was making. The car wasn’t hers. She tried to cross and probably stopped at the car because she got scared. She told me ‘I’m scared, I can’t cross.’ The water had so many rocks, she was surely elderly and her legs couldn’t handle it. She was so terrified that as soon as she looked at me and said ‘I’m scared’ I started going across. I went and grabbed her,” said Mr. Oikonomopoulos.
“In the middle as I was crossing the street – because so many rocks were coming, my legs are full of wounds – I thought to myself not to fall and to reach the other side. I grabbed her and when we left the car, after two or three meters she fell down and I think that’s where the video starts, I lifted her up and the other gentleman came,” he added.
“The rocks were the most difficult part. After 10-15 minutes that specific spot was filled with rocks and soil. And quite large rocks,” Mr. Oikonomopoulos noted and commented that the woman was swept away by the water and “rocks were coming at her.” “It would have been easy for something terrible to happen,” he remarked.
