Natalia Iocco
09/19/2020 - 14:39
Clarín.com
Society
There are 24 shoes that were waiting.
They are in boxes and they were, almost two months ago, the search that Noemí Gómez (30) invented to have a job.
She began to offer it on social networks and that was on July 18 when two people assaulted her to steal her cell phone,
her only work tool
.
The struggle lasted seconds but it was enough: Naomi fell to the ground and broke her leg in three parts.
They had to operate on her and she has been unable to walk for two months.
"It's desperate, there comes a time when you can't get over it. You think, 'Well, it's over, people forgot'. But they don't know what it is, it's tremendous," he tells
Clarín
from his home in Glew .
It was around 2:00 p.m. - he remembers - that he arrived at the stop and waited for the bus for more than 20 minutes.
Since he had to go see his first client, he did not want to be late, and decided to walk down Clark Street to Route 210, to take another line and get there faster.
She was calm but in a hurry, talking to her sister on the phone.
She did not notice the car that was driving slowly past her.
Nor did it strike her that a man was looking for an address a few feet ahead.
Naomi went through that path without knowing that
her image was going to go viral
.
She didn't suspect how much she was going to miss that walk.
"I had already seen the truck (a Chevrolet Spin) at the bus stop, but I thought it was someone looking for an address, I never imagined ... I was distracted, I saw the person who was standing there and I didn't realize it. .
I think they didn't catch me before because there were people, no one was walking right on that block, but they waited for me like three blocks, "this newspaper published her story, the next day.
The cameras recorded the robbery, the fall and her photos, lying on the ground,
her leg turned into a zigzag
.
He waited more than an hour for the ambulance to arrive, in the rain.
Without work, without social work and with a long recovery ahead of her, Noemí not only waited for that hour immersed in "unbearable pain" but also had to wait another 15 days until they could operate on her.
"The pain was a tremendous thing. The first day, they approached the bed and I saw the stars," he describes.
After the attack, she was transferred to the Lucio Meléndez Hospital in Adrogué, where they took an X-ray and cast her from the foot, almost to the hip.
Completely immobilized and without help, they sent her back home until they were able to present the necessary documentation for the Province to buy the prostheses and be able to operate on her.
"It is not that we did not wait, two weeks we were calling, asking, seeing how to do so that they can operate her faster. That is when we went to see a private traumatologist and he told us that we had to operate her urgently because that was going to be sealed like that and it was going to get worse. Luckily we did it ", recapitulates Abel, Naomi's husband.
Noemí Gomez at her home in the Glew neighborhood.
"What happened to me is not bad luck, it is insecurity," he says.
Photo Maxi Failla
Abel works as a sodero and had to take out
two credits to pay for the treatments
.
"I just went to the pharmacy and I only spent seven thousand pesos on medicine," he becomes anguished.
Neighbors, friends and anonymous people who stood in solidarity with them and donated money to an account.
Others introduced them to medical friends and thus helped them pay for part of the treatment.
On August 7, Naomi had surgery.
"On the one hand I am grateful that it happened to me and not to someone dear because I do not wish this to anyone. I am grateful that it was not worse, because they could have done anything. In all, I ran into
good people who helped me
and it could be done faster. If it hadn't been for that, I was still waiting for the nails in the hospital, "she consoles herself.
In addition to the collapse due to the pandemic and bureaucratic delays, the health center only detected a fractured tibia and fibula.
But when he managed to get care at a private clinic with the money collected, they found another broken ankle.
"The CT scan showed that I had another break. So if I kept waiting, at the hospital they were going to operate on my leg and when they opened they were going to find out about my ankle and again I was going to have to wait for that prosthesis because They put a plate and a screw on me. I think I would keep waiting. "
The private care cost her
more than 150 thousand pesos
that they were able to pay between donations, help from people who had gone through the same thing as her and credits they took to pay it.
But there is still a long way to go and this couple is afraid that - now - they will be left alone.
The Municipality of Almirante Brown helped them by providing them with a person who accompanied Noemí to her home, also with transfers to the clinic in Avellaneda.
She is in charge of her two children, 13 and 9 years old, due to the context of the pandemic, her relatives could not mobilize to go home and, without work, they cannot pay someone to help them.
"My mother is 65 years old, she is in a risk group, she cannot be here and Abel goes to work every day, she is with a lot of people and it is a risk. The person who sent us the municipality stopped coming And now I don't know what we're going to do. I'm alone with the boys all day and I can't even go shopping, or cook, nothing, "she worries.
On crutches.
Naomi cannot stand for long and is in severe pain.
Photo Maxi Failla
"Now with crutches I can stand up to go to the bathroom, at least, but I can't stand for long because my leg immediately turns purple and it hurts a lot. Luckily my children are grown up and, after all, they understand the situation. The oldest is very attentive and, if she hears that I am going to the bathroom with crutches, she wakes up right away. She is afraid that I will fall. But at this moment what worries us most is rehabilitation ", confesses Naomi that before the Quarantine worked taking care of children in private homes.
As it carried out the operation in the private system, the authorities questioned whether it can carry out the rehabilitation in a public place.
"They tell me that they don't know if they are going to accept me because, as I was able to pay for the operation, I can also pay for the rehabilitation. And we did that with donations,
we can no longer go into debt
."
Days after attacking Noemí, they arrested Gabriel Córdoba, the son of an official from the Municipality of Presidente Perón, who would be the owner of the car.
Shortly after, the perpetrator of the struggle fell, Alejandro Korn.
"I want to know that they are detained and that they are not going to leave. How long are they going to be in prison? If I don't finish the rehabilitation and they are released?", Asks Naomi.
"I want to fend for myself, to be able to walk, something as simple as that. I have not been able to put on a pair of pants for two months. And, in addition to my recovery, it will be very challenging for me to go out again, because I am very afraid :
it is not bad luck what happened to me, it is insecurity
".
ACE