Miracle airline crash boy has a smile for kin
Source: Agencies |
May 14, 2010, Friday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
THE Dutch boy who was the sole survivor of a plane crash that killed 103 people greeted his relatives with a smile yesterday after they rushed from the Netherlands to his hospital room in Libya.
And doctors said the 9-year-old was out of danger after successful surgery on his shattered legs.
The Dutch Foreign Ministry said the boy's aunt and uncle were in the Libyan capital of Tripoli and officials at al-Khadra Hospital said a group of Westerners visiting him were his relatives.
A Dutch Embassy spokeswoman in Tripoli told Dutch state broadcaster NOS that the boy immediately recognized his loved ones and smiled at them when they entered.
A Dutch newspaper identified the boy as Ruben van Assouw and quoted a woman who appeared to be his grandmother as saying he had been in South Africa on safari with his brother and parents, who were celebrating their wedding anniversary.
"We don't understand this at all," she told the Dutch daily Brabants Dagblad. "It's like we're in a movie."
A bouquet of white flowers, the traditional color for mourning, was propped against the door of the van Assouw family home - a two-story brick townhouse with white curtains covering the windows in a quiet neighborhood of Tilburg, 115 kilometers south of Amsterdam.
Hameeda al-Saheli, the head of the pediatric unit at the hospital where the boy is being treated, said he is breathing normally and his vital organs are intact.
She told the official Libyan news agency he suffered four fractures in his legs and lost a lot of blood, but his neck, skull and brain were not affected and he did not suffer internal bleeding.
The boy was on the Libyan plane arriving from South Africa on Wednesday when it crashed minutes before landing at the airport in the capital of Tripoli.
Officials at the hospital said the boy, still in a fragile state, had not yet been told of the death of his parents and brother in the tragedy.
The Airbus A330-200 was completing a flight across the African continent from Johannesburg when it crashed.
More than half of the crash victims were Dutch tourists who had been vacationing in South Africa.
An inquiry into the cause of the crash is underway involving experts from the United States, France, South Africa, the Netherlands and Libya.
And doctors said the 9-year-old was out of danger after successful surgery on his shattered legs.
The Dutch Foreign Ministry said the boy's aunt and uncle were in the Libyan capital of Tripoli and officials at al-Khadra Hospital said a group of Westerners visiting him were his relatives.
A Dutch Embassy spokeswoman in Tripoli told Dutch state broadcaster NOS that the boy immediately recognized his loved ones and smiled at them when they entered.
A Dutch newspaper identified the boy as Ruben van Assouw and quoted a woman who appeared to be his grandmother as saying he had been in South Africa on safari with his brother and parents, who were celebrating their wedding anniversary.
"We don't understand this at all," she told the Dutch daily Brabants Dagblad. "It's like we're in a movie."
A bouquet of white flowers, the traditional color for mourning, was propped against the door of the van Assouw family home - a two-story brick townhouse with white curtains covering the windows in a quiet neighborhood of Tilburg, 115 kilometers south of Amsterdam.
Hameeda al-Saheli, the head of the pediatric unit at the hospital where the boy is being treated, said he is breathing normally and his vital organs are intact.
She told the official Libyan news agency he suffered four fractures in his legs and lost a lot of blood, but his neck, skull and brain were not affected and he did not suffer internal bleeding.
The boy was on the Libyan plane arriving from South Africa on Wednesday when it crashed minutes before landing at the airport in the capital of Tripoli.
Officials at the hospital said the boy, still in a fragile state, had not yet been told of the death of his parents and brother in the tragedy.
The Airbus A330-200 was completing a flight across the African continent from Johannesburg when it crashed.
More than half of the crash victims were Dutch tourists who had been vacationing in South Africa.
An inquiry into the cause of the crash is underway involving experts from the United States, France, South Africa, the Netherlands and Libya.
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