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Outlook: Who was the stranger who saved my life?

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Sonia Solorzano in the wreckage of a bus after being saved by an unknown rescue worker

13/04/2022 GMT

Who was the stranger who saved my life?

BBC World Service - Outlook, Who was the stranger who saved my life?

Sonia Solorzano spent years seeking the unknown man who rescued her from a destroyed bus

Sonia Solorzano survived the horrific 1992 Guadalajara gas explosions when a stranger pulled her from the wreckage of a destroyed bus. She would spend decades trying to find him.

In April 1992, a gas leak in Guadalajara’s sewer system caused a series of blasts which decimated an entire neighbourhood of the Mexican city, ripping through buildings and hurling cars and trucks into the air. Sonia Solorzano was on a bus that exploded twice and she would spend decades trying to find the unknown rescue worker who saved her life. The only clue she had was a grainy photo showing the man’s back as he pulled her from the wreckage of the bus. Sonia tells her story to Clayton Conn.

Kathrine Switzer was 20 when she signed up for the world famous Boston Marathon in 1967 using only her initials. After she started running, a race official spotted her and attacked her, outraged that a woman was running in the men-only event. Photos of that moment went across the world, and changed Kathrine’s life and the future of the sport. (A longer version of this interview was first broadcast in January 2021)

(Photo: Sonia Solorzano [bottom right] after being saved from a wrecked bus by an unknown rescue worker, later identified as Pablo Carrera. Credit: Courtesy of Sonia Solorzano)

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