Mom Of 3’s Body ‘Cut In Half’ By Hospital Lift Shortly After Giving Birth

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Rocío Cortés Núñez, from the town of Dos Hermanas near Seville, is said to have been killed as she was transported on a stretcher between the second and third floors of the Valme Hospital in Seville, southern Spain.

The woman was being taken to a maternity unit after waking up following a C-section.

‘We heard a loud blow in the elevator,’ her husband Jose Gaspar said.

The victim’s husband told Spanish paper ABC: ‘This cannot end like this. This time it has been Rocio but tomorrow it could be another person. I’m a total wreck.’

The new baby was not with her when the tragedy happened.

She is also a mother to two other daughters, aged three and four, according to Spanish newspaper El Correo.

A porter was taking the Mom on a stretcher from the second floor to her third-floor room at Valme Hospital in Seville, after she woke up from her Caesarian anaesthetic.

A local report said the lift began to function unexpectedly before Rocio was fully in and the doors had closed, causing her head to become trapped.

Regional health minister Marina Alvarez – responding to initial reports that the porter was leaving the lift after he pressed the button to go up but nothing happened – said that Rocio was trapped after the lift made an ‘unusual movement’ as the worker went to remove her on a stretcher.

The baby, who was initially thought to be beside her mother, was on her way to a different hospital to receive treatment for a heart condition at the time – and remained at Virgen del Rocio Hospital in Seville on Monday where she is said to be responding well to treatment.

Firefighters took almost two hours to free Rocio’s mauled body following the tragedy around 2.30pm on Sunday.

Witnesses described the incident as ‘something out of a horror film.’ An unnamed hospital worker said: ‘If they hadn’t taken the baby to another hospital she could have suffered the same fate because they always put new-borns on their mother’s breast, even when it’s been a Caesarian.’ 

Police as well as firefighters rushed to the scene along with duty medics but could nothing to save her life.  The young woman’s father Juan Manuel Cortes reportedly shouted: ‘They killed her! My daughter was killed!’

Rocio’s father, who only found out she had died after travelling to the Seville hospital where the tragedy occurred to be met by police, added: ‘They have killed my beautiful daughter, the joy of my life, and they’ve left three young girls without their mum.’

Rocio’s Mother Carmen said she became worried when she reached the hospital with her husband and discovered that an accident had happened in the lift.

She said: ‘My heart missed a beat. I asked after my daughter but no-one was telling me anything.

‘She had given birth at 11 in the morning so I went to the information desk. They told me there a young girl had died and then confirmed it was my daughter. What a cruel death she’s suffered.’ 

An investigation, coordinated by an investigating magistrate, is now underway.