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Girl awakes ‘unscathed’ after ice fall drama

A six-year-old girl who was rescued by her mother after becoming trapped under ice in a creek in southern Sweden last week has awoken after her extended ordeal apparently unhurt.

Published: 22 January 2012 10:08 CET

The girl awoke after four days in an induced coma at the intensive care ward at Kalmar hospital in southern Sweden on Saturday and is reported to have expressed a wish to go home.

“The crisis is over and we are very happy,” the girl’s father said according to the Kvällsposten daily.

The girl and her older brother were playing near the shoreline of a creek in Flygsfors near Orrefors in southern Sweden before venturing out on the ice when it suddenly gave way, sending both of them crashing into the icy water.

While the girl’s brother managed to pull himself out of the water and make it back to shore, he was unable to help his sister and instead ran back to his house to alert his mother about the accident.

By the time the mother arrived, the 6-year-old girl had drifted under the ice about 20 metres away from the hole where she and her brother had fallen in.

However, the mother was able spot the girl through the clear ice, around three to four metres from shore.

Several passers-by were able to come to the aid of the girl, including attempts to resuscitate her.

The girl had another stroke of luck on the way to hospital when the ambulance in which she was being transported passed by another ambulance carrying an anaesthetist.

The girl was quickly put to sleep and her body temperature cooled in order to protect her organs. After four days, doctors at the hospital took the decision to take her off a respirator and wake her up.

The doctors now believe that despite having spent such a long period under the ice the girl has not sustained any serious injuries.

The six-year-old has now been moved from intensive care to a regular ward and is reported to have enjoyed ice cream in her hospital bed on Saturday.

“She was still in shock, but recognised us and said that she wanted to go home. It was one of the most wonderful things I have ever heard her say,” her father told the newspaper.

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Aya Biran , a paternal aunt of Eitan Biran who was the sole survivor of a deadly cable car crash in Italy, arrives at Tel Aviv’s Justice Court on October 10, 2021

Aya Biran , a paternal aunt of Eitan Biran who was the sole survivor of a deadly cable car crash in Italy, arrives at Tel Aviv’s Justice Court on October 10, 2021. Ahmad GHARABLI / AFP

The battle for custody of Eitan Biran, the sole survivor of the May accident that killed 14 people, has captured headlines since his maternal grandfather, Shmulik Peleg, brought him to Israel on a private jet last month.

The child lost his parents, younger brother and great-grandparents in the May 23 accident near the top of the Mottarone mountain in the northwestern Piedmont region, where the family was out on a Sunday excursion to the scenic spot served by the cable car.

The cable car’s pull cable snapped just before it reached destination. It then flew backwards, dislodging itself from a second, supporting cable, and crashed to the ground.

Investigations later revealed that emergency brakes that could have stopped the car on its supporting cable, avoiding the tragedy, had been deliberately deactivated to avoid delays following a technical malfunction.

Three individuals responsible for the cable car’s management were subsequently arrested.

The wreckage of a cable car that crashed on the slopes of the Mottarone peak above Stresa, Piedmont on May 23, 2021, killing 14.

The wreckage of a cable car that crashed on the slopes of the Mottarone peak above Stresa, Piedmont on May 23, 2021, killing 14. MIGUEL MEDINA / AFP.

Peleg has insisted that he drove Eitan from Italy to Switzerland before jetting him back to Israel – instead of returning him paternal aunt Aya Biran, who lives in northern Italy – because Eitan’s late parents wanted him to be raised in the Jewish state.

But Peleg has become the subject kidnapping probe by Italian prosecutors and Israeli police questioned him over those allegations last month.

A statement Monday from the Tel Aviv court where Aya Biran had filed a complaint said judges “did not accept the grandfather’s claim that the aunt has no custody rights”.

It recognised an Italian judgement that established Biran as a legitimate guardian and said Peleg had “unlawfully” removed the boy from his aunt’s care.

The court “ordered the return of the minor to his usual place of residence in Italy”.

The court also found that “a connection” between the surviving members of the Italy- and Israel-based relatives was in Eitan’s “best interests”.

Peleg was also ordered to pay Biran’s legal fees, amounting to 70,000 shekels ($22,000).

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Shmuel Peleg, the grandfather of Eitan Biran, hugs a relative outside the Justice Court in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv on October 8, 2021.

Shmuel Peleg, the grandfather of Eitan Biran, hugs a relative outside the Justice Court in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv on October 8, 2021. Ahmad GHARABLI / AFP

The case has stirred emotions in Israel, and throngs of journalists had surrounded the Tel Aviv court for hearings last month, with some pro-Peleg protesters insisting it was wrong to send a Jewish child out of Israel.

Before judges ordered the sides to stop talking to the media, Peleg told Israel’s Channel 12 in September that his grandson was “in the place where he is supposed to be, in his home, in Israel.”

Eitan and his parents, Amit Biran and Tal Peleg, had been living in Italy, where Amit Biran was studying medicine, together with their other child, Tom.

Eitan suffered severe chest and abdominal injuries and spent a week in intensive care after the May accident that occurred when a cable snapped on the aerial tram bringing weekend visitors to the top of the Piedmont region’s Mottarone mountain.

The accident was one of Italy’s worst in over two decades.

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