Gil had been on duty in a small concrete security booth in the basement of a parking lot beside the Galerias Playa Grande mall in Catia La Mar when the earthquakes struck. That tiny booth almost certainly saved his life. It appears to have created a protective shell around him, shielding him from the enormous weight of debris that collapsed above and around him. When rescuers eventually reached him, he reportedly told them he did not even have a crushed fingernail — a detail that left the rescue teams astonished given what he had endured.
The Moment He Was Found
The breakthrough came on Sunday, when Allan Madrigal, a paramedic with the Costa Rican Red Cross on his very first international rescue mission, heard what sounded like faint cries for help rising from the rubble. He barely trusted his own senses at first, turning to a colleague to confirm that he was not imagining what he was hearing. The moment he was sure, the pace of the rescue operation changed entirely. Teams from Venezuela, Chile, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Mexico, Portugal, and the United States all joined forces to work toward reaching Gil as safely and quickly as possible.
The operation was as dangerous as it was difficult. Access tunnels that rescuers carefully constructed to reach Gil collapsed multiple times during the process, underscoring the very real risks the teams themselves were taking. Water was passed through to Gil and medical staff connected him to an intravenous drip to help sustain him through the wait. Overnight, teams finally managed to establish visual contact using a small camera inserted into the rubble. In footage captured through that camera, a Chilean firefighter could be heard asking Gil to turn his head toward the lens. His eye was bloodshot and he was wearing a face mask that rescuers had earlier passed to him to protect his lungs from the dust and debris generated by the digging. He was also given goggles to shield his eyes as the careful extraction work continued around him.
A Man Who Kept Everyone Going
What struck the rescue teams most, beyond the technical challenge of the operation, was Gil himself. Marco Antonio Franco from the Mexican Red Cross described him as a cheerful man who even requested hydration drinks in specific flavours he preferred, a request the team happily obliged. Franco said Gil actively encouraged his rescuers, telling them to keep going and greeting returning team members warmly by name. The conversations between Gil and the rescue crews ranged from talk of his family to the difficulties of the operation itself, a steady back-and-forth that helped keep spirits up on both sides of the rubble.
For Madrigal, the paramedic who first heard Gil's voice and set the rescue in motion, the experience was transformative. On his first international mission, he found himself at the centre of one of the most emotionally charged rescues in recent memory. He told reporters that the person who arrived in Venezuela a week earlier would not be the same person returning to Costa Rica. It was the kind of statement that needed no explanation. Amid a disaster that has taken more than 2,500 lives and left countless families still searching for answers, Hernán Gil's survival is a rare and powerful reminder that sometimes, against every expectation, people make it through.
