Fishermen have found Angelica Gaitan, a woman who had gone missing for two years. The woman was found floating in the middle of the ocean after a failed suicide attempt.
Gaitan, fully clothed, wearing several scarfs and a pair of sneakers, was spotted by fisherman Roland Visbal, about 1.2 miles off of Puerto Colombia.
In several photos and videos posted on Facebook, the fisherman explained that he rescued the floating woman on September 26, 2020.
In one of the viral videos, Visbal could be heard calling out to the woman in Spanish and later in English, but she never responded.
The clips showed that the missing mother, while alive, was frail and was suffering from hypothermia after spending eight hours in the sea.
Talking to local media, the fishermen said they initially thought the woman was a log being carried away by the waves.
They discovered it was a person drowning, struggling, and waving her hands for help as they got closer. They threw a lifesaver to her and gradually pulled her safely onto the boat.
Once in the vessel, the fishers attempted to speak to the victim, and she refused to talk and started crying. While at the hospital, Gaitan explained what pushed her to try to take her life.
First, she stated regretted her decision to end her days and added: “I was born again, thank God. If I had had an opportunity or a help, I would not make that decision. Now I am very grateful because God gave me a new opportunity to move forward.”
She later confessed to being beaten and violated by her ex-husband for several years. The 46-year-old woman revealed that he “violently beat” her even during her two pregnancies.
She revealed to RCNRadio: “The abuse began in the first pregnancy; he beat me; he violently abused me. In the second pregnancy, the abuse continued and I could not get away from him because the girls were small. Many times I reported him but the police took him for 24 hours and when he was in the house again, the assaults returned.”
In another interview with DiarioLaLibertad, Gaitan said that her spouse made her a prisoner by locking her in their home.
He prevented her from using the bathroom and was forced to use the garden as her toilet. She told RCN that she was in an abusive relationship for 20 years, and he tried to kill her in September 2018, and she escaped.
She was homeless for six months before seeking help in a woman’s shelter, where she was bullied and mistreated. She revealed someone turned off her water while she took showers, and they poured soap into her juice.
The police forced her out of the shelter because her former spouse moved to another state, and she started having suicidal thoughts.
She confessed: “I did not want to continue with my life. A lady lent me for the tickets, and I took a bus directly to the sea. I wanted to end everything, I had no help from anyone, not even from my family because this man kept me away from my social circle, that’s why I didn’t want to continue living.”
Gaitan said that her last memory before being rescued was “being on the seashore” in “solitude” when she decided to jump into the sea.
Her daughter, Alejandra Castiblanco, said she lost contact with her two years ago. Castiblanco claimed her mother was never suicidal, and her father was not violent. Castiblanco and her sister are doing all they can to get her back home.
