Two fishermen rescued a Colombian woman while at sea and later discovered she went missing two years ago

The mystery surrounding a woman found alive at sea and rescued by two fishermen keeps the public baffled. The Colombian woman had fallen off the grid two years ago, and the police are still investigating the circumstances surrounding her disappearance and rescue.

The footage of the miraculous rescue quickly went viral online. The fisherman Roland Visbal managed to rescue Angelica Gaitan, 46, after he found her floating unconscious 1.2 miles off of Puerto Colombia.

A week ago, at around 6 AM, he and his friend, Gustavo, saw the body of the woman in the cold waters, but initially believed it was a piece of driftwood.

Yet, when the woman started raising her hands for help, they knew they had to act fast!

She had stayed afloat for hours and drifted in and out of consciousness.

In the dramatic video, the men are heard calling her out to get her attention. Yet, when they finally manage to approach her, she is already unresponsive. It was later reported that after over eight hours in the water, she suffered from exhaustion and hypothermia.

Yet, the men threw a rope attached to a life preserver to the woman to pull her into the boat and managed to save her.

Reportedly, Gaitan’s first words were:

 “I was born again. God did not want me to die.”

Angelica burst into tears the moment she was out of the sea. Her saviors brought her to the shore, and locals immediately rushed to her. She was taken to a nearby hospital soon. Yet, when she was identified, her backstory surprised many.

Allegedly, after 20 years of being abused by her husband, she escaped from him two years ago. Since then, her family lost touch with her, not knowing whether she was alive or not.

Later, Angelica explained:

“The abuse began in the first pregnancy. He beat me, he violently abused me. In my second pregnancy, the abuse continued and I could not get away from him because the girls were small.”

When she reported the domestic abuse to local authorities, police only detained her partner for 24 hours, after which he would return home and resume assaulting her.

Angelica explained that back in September 2018, in a horrific scene, her partner ‘broke her face and tried to kill her.’ This was a point of no return. Angelica felt she had to run away.

She stayed in Barranquilla for six months. Yet, according to local media reports, she became depressed and thought of ending her life after she was recently forced out of a foster home.

This time, she took a bus to the beach and jumped into the water.

She said:

“I did not want to continue with my life.”

While the police are investigating the case, local media have managed to find one of her daughters, Alejandra Castiblanco. Yet, she contradicted her mother’s account on the disappearance, claiming that she was never abused by her father, but her mental health deteriorated after she suffered a heart attack.

The two daughters of the woman even issued a joint video statement, claiming that they hadn’t heard from their mother since 2018, when she was reportedly in Ecuador, and have only recently heard that she was being treated by a psychiatrist in Barranquilla, Colombia.

Source: www.ctvnews.ca