Lucija Prajo, who died in the floods in Dusina near Fojnica, was buried yesterday. Her husband, Stjepan described the events of that fateful night when the flash flood carried everything in front of it and when he himself could have perished.
At the moment when the flood hit this area, Stjepan was at work.
“I saw that there were problems. I called him and said we were going home,” Stjepan begins the story, alluding to the boy who saved him.
They drove the car towards his house. They were supposed to cross the river over a nearby bridge, but they didn’t succeed.
“It was impossible to approach there. Let’s leave the car, let’s go back up towards the containers, where we came from. On the way back, it is night, and I stepped here, he went there. I was also carried away by the water. I tried to grab the stones, where the macadam is. He grabbed my arm as I approached and pulled me out. That’s when he saved me,” continues Stjepan.
He adds that at that moment he had a bad feeling, which he is reluctant to talk about now.
”I don’t like to talk about it. I see my death in front of me… to die, but not to suffer. It’s a bad feeling, I can’t tell anyone how I felt,” he says.
Heroic act of a boy in danger
The boy who saved Stjepan is 15 years old. Her name is Jasmin. Without his help, he says, he would not have survived.
“We were carried by the water for fifteen minutes,” adds Jasmin, emphasizing that he thought that both of them would get hurt.
Stjepan’s daughter also survived. Neighbors managed to save her.
The neighbor, Elvir Salcinovic, says that the house of Stjepan and his deceased wife, Lucija, was the first to be hit when the torrent started.
“My house is the second one. Here you can see for yourself where the water was, the water level has risen in some places… There is still a huge width here. Up in the narrow stream, it might have been 7-8 meters high,” recalls Elvir.
He adds that he was with his parents that evening. About 1 a.m.it was raining heavily.
“We entered the house, and of course, we decided to lie down and rest. I set the alarm for 4 a.m., I needed to do something, to get up early. In the meantime, around 2:30 a.m., my wife calls me, wakes me up, says ‘the flood‘. What flood? I just woke up, went out on the terrace and I see the water is already crossing here. I had a dog there, only his head was sticking out of the water. I went into the water in my clothes, to save the dog, that was my priority. And then I still tried to save some things and we retreated to the house, we watched, observed what was happening. It flowed from all sides. We moved the cars as much as we could so they wouldn’t be completely submerged by the water. Well, I don’t know what to say, a person who doesn’t experience it, can’t describe it. A higher force,” says Elvir.
It is still difficult to get to this settlement, the road is being repaired.
“It is a great damage. We fix, we help people as much as can be helped. We spend most of our time on the roads,” a local explained.
To recall, due to the heavy rains and floods that affected the area of Fojnica in recent days, the settlements of Dusina, Gojevici and Bakovici suffered serious damage. The torrential water damaged roads, threatened households and caused material damage, leaving behind deposits of mud, garbage and damaged buildings. However, as a result of this disaster, the solidarity and togetherness of the entire community came to the fore, N1 writes.
Photo: N1
E.Dz.
