Zihad Hrelja from Gorazde, a member of the Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina (AFBiH), yesterday saved a girl from certain death as she was drowning in the Drina. He pulled her out while fighting the Drina rapids near Vitkovici near Gorazde.
Zihad told that the locals of Vitkovici noticed that the girl was drowning and called for help. He quickly ran out of the apartment and threw himself into the water to save her.
“I heard her shouting ‘save me’. She was in the depths of the Drina and her jacket got caught on a rock. I was running barefoot, I think I managed to catch her at the last moment because there were already rapids below and she had no more strength. Thank God I managed to get her out, I called the police, they arrived quickly. Believe me, I didn’t think about myself for a second, it’s simply something stronger in a person,” says Hrelja.
Zihad has the rank of sergeant in the Armed Forces, is a medical technician of the Demining Battalion of the AFBiH and is used to helping people.
For yesterday‘s act, he received a big round of applause from his neighbors and fellow citizens who gathered on the river bank at the moment he was fighting to save the girl in the river. However, after the rescue, the girl moved away from this place, and the police found her after about 40 minutes near another bridge in the Bacci settlement.
“She was transported to the Emergency Center of the Cantonal Hospital. After treatment, she was sent to the Sarajevo University Clinical Center,” said Mirsad Kamenica, head of the Department for Analytics and Secret Data Protection of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Bosnian-Podrinje Canton (BPC)Gorazde, Klix.ba reports.
E.Dz.