Grandmother Saves Four Children from Trailer before It Is Hit by Tornado

04/24/2015 - 09h18

Last Monday (20), a 59-year-old woman saved four children who were playing inside a trailer, when a tornado touched down in Xanxerê, a town in the Southwest of Santa Catarina.
 
When she noticed that a black cloud loomed, Carolina Cichczwski ran instinctively to the street and looked for her grandchildren, Mariana, 8, and Murilo, 3, who were having fun inside the parked vehicle.
 
Two other children from the neighbourhood were in the family's trailer, parked on the street. Carolina pulled the kids from the vehicle and took them to a bathroom inside the house, moments before it was flipped by the strong winds.
 
I was in the backyard. When I saw it, it was coming. Looked like smoke. I saw that it was a 'hurricane', it was noisy. I grabbed the four, took them out of there and brought them inside. We were all inside the bathroom. We saved ourselves there."

According to the grandmother, the trailer completed a "somersault". The vehicle, which had just been used for a trip to Mato Grosso, was totally destroyed. "The trailer flipped three times. It was a matter of seconds. It would have killed the four of them", she says.
 
Carolina says the passage of the tornado lasted two or three minutes. The roof of her house was almost entirely ripped off by the winds. Since then, she has moved to her daughter's house - also damaged by the tornado - on the same street. The neighbourhood's power supply is still down.

Translated by JULIANA CALDERARI

Read the article in the original language

	Zanone Fraissat/Folhapress
	Carolina Cichczwski, 59, saved four children who were playing inside a trailer, when a tornado touched down in Xanxerê