Carmen Díez, the 67-year-old Spanish woman who was rescued on Friday after spending three days alone aboard a sailboat off Pylos, is living through moments of agony. She had been left stranded without any means of communication after her husband fell overboard. The missing man, 66-year-old businessman Juan José Mutilva Obregón from Burgos, Spain, has still not been found, and his wife has refused to return home while search operations continue. According to their son Sergio, the phrase she keeps repeating since her rescue is: “Until dad is found, I don’t want to go back to Burgos.”
Read more: Thriller off Pylos: Spanish businessman slips into the sea while cleaning a fish — his last cry and the family’s desperate plea
Pylos: The 67-year-old blames herself, believing she failed to react in time during the critical moments
According to the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, Carmen Díez is now physically safe, but she is in a deeply distressed psychological state and is receiving specialized support following her extraordinary ordeal.
The specialists who examined her have recommended that she continue receiving professional help, warning the family that the full psychological impact of what she experienced may only surface once the initial shock begins to subside.
“She still recounts everything with a strange ease, almost as if she’s describing a film rather than something that happened to her. She hasn’t fully processed it yet,” her son told El Mundo.
The family has been informed that Carmen may require medication, and that there is a real possibility she could develop post-traumatic stress disorder, potentially needing long-term psychological support. A first troubling sign has already emerged: Carmen is blaming herself, convinced that she failed to react the way she should have in the critical moments after her husband fell into the sea.
The fall overboard and the dramatic moments that followed
From what the family has been able to piece together, the 66-year-old had just caught a tuna and was cleaning it on deck when he slipped on the fish’s blood and fell into the sea.
Carmen had obtained a recreational boat operator’s license “many years ago,” but she had never before found herself in a situation where she would have to single-handedly manage the sailboat while simultaneously trying to save her husband.
“She saw him in the water and believes she perhaps should have reacted differently… We’re trying to convince her that she can’t carry this burden, but she is devastated,” her son recounted.
She then spent three days alone aboard the sailboat with no way to communicate with the outside world, until she was located and rescued on Friday.
The family is demanding updates on the search operation
Meanwhile, the family’s anguish is deepening with each passing day that brings no trace of the 66-year-old. According to El Mundo, the search operation is now being coordinated by Italian authorities; however, the missing man’s relatives have complained about a severe lack of information regarding the scope of the operation.
As Sergio explains, the family has been forced to chase down information on their own, making phone calls back and forth between Spain, Greece, and Italy.
“We have no idea what’s happening. We understand that days have passed and that finding a person under these conditions is extremely difficult. Every resource may well be deployed — but we don’t know, because no one is telling us anything. If we don’t call ourselves, we hear nothing,” he said.
The family is not claiming that the search has been called off. What they are asking for is to know how many people are involved in the operation, what assets remain deployed, and which sea areas are being searched. El Mundo also noted that it attempted to gather more information from the relevant authorities, but had so far received no updates beyond details relating to the initial operation to locate the sailboat and rescue Carmen.
“All we’re asking is that they keep searching”
The family’s greatest fear is the time slipping by. “Time is critical. If, for example, no search is being carried out today, that is time lost. Finding a person is already extremely difficult, but if every available resource isn’t being used, it becomes even harder,” said the missing man’s son.
For this reason, he is also calling on Spanish authorities to become more actively involved — to find out the true extent of the search and to explore whether additional resources can be committed. “We want to speak with the Ministry of the Interior and see if more assets can be mobilized. All we’re asking is that they don’t stop — that they keep searching,” he stressed.
Juan José Mutilva Obregón was an IT professional who spent years as the head of D’ors Informática and later worked in companies supplying water to businesses through Mutobre SL. After retiring, he dedicated much of his time to sailing alongside his wife.
