Edition 290
www.thecourier.es
Friday 23rd September 2016
HOME RESCUE
BY ALEX TRELINSKI
G
uardia Civil officers risked their lives by climbing onto high balconies to res-
T
cue an elderly British man who had fallen in his Alicante area flat. The 69-
year-old expat had slipped on the kitchen floor of his El Campello apartment and was unable to get up for three days, going without food or water. A concerned neighbour, who got worried that he had not seen the unnamed man for a few days, called the authorities, since the 69year-old lived alone, and he did not have a key to his property so that he could check up on him. The Guardia Civil initially contacted the British Consulate in Alicante as well as calling hospitals to see if he had been taken there, but then they got legal authority to break into the fifth-floor apartment. The Guardia officers tried, without success, to break the front door down, which had an additional iron anti-burglary grill mounted
on it. In desperation, they climbed across from the neighbour's balcony onto that of the ailing British man. The brave move from the Guardia saw them climbing high as the balconies are 20 metres above ground, but an officer made it, and managed to get through the man’s window. The pensioner was on the kitchen floor in a very weak state due to his hunger and thirst, as he had not eaten or drank anything for three days, due to his fall making him immobile. The man, whose family live in Britain, was able to speak to the Guardia officers about what had happened. Despite his ordeal, his condition was not lifethreatening, but he was still nevertheless taken to the intensive care unit of Sant Joan d'Alacant hospital.
BINNED OFF
orrevieja council's plans to run the area’s waste collection service have been scrapped, meaning a new private tender contract will have to be advertised. The news came after the authority's 2016 budget plans were voted down at a council meeting last Friday. Torrevieja mayor, José Manuel Dolón, was forced to announce that his "rubbish" plan was a dead duck on Tuesday, after opposition Partido Popular and Ciudadanos councillors combined to reject the coalition government team's annual budget. The council will tender a new waste collection con-
tract next spring, after the old contract with Acciona ran out in June, which cost 17 million euros per annum. Acciona is currently providing a service on a monthly basis. Dolón slammed the PP and Ciudadanos: - "13 opposition councillors exercised their right to hurt local residents and the provision of services. Voting against the budget puts us in a precarious position, especially over waste collection, which will now cost us three million euros more ever year as opposed to what it would have been under council control”. The mayor called on resi-
dents to ask the opposition councillors why they chose to vote down the budget, which “will mean less money to spend and more cuts”. Dolón also talked of a "black hand" and a lack of transparency behind the PP, accusing them of supporting private compa-
nies through self-interest. Local PP leader and exTorrevieja mayor, Eduardo Dolon, said that plans for seven and half million euros of cuts, as well as the new plans over waste collection services led to his group voting against the 2016 budget.
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