Miguel A. Lopes / Lusa
This Wednesday, the bus driver who was the victim of the “most serious” attack during the Lisbon riots tells of the traumatic episode, which he experienced “alone” and left him in a week of coma between life and death.
“This will last for lifebecause I don’t hurt anyone”, says the Carris driver, who in the early hours of October 24th opened the bus doors to let passengers off, at around 2am, in Santo Antônio dos Cavaleiros, municipality of Loures.
“I try to close the doors and there is an individual who enters through the middle door. Point the gun at my head and says ‘you’re not leaving’ — and I’m in my place.” The report was given on Wednesday night, in a video interview, where the victim’s face, James Cacaisis not displayed.
“Meanwhile they begin to mandar cocktails molotov to the bus window, to the bus entrance door, to my seat, on top of me. I immediately feel that there is a fuel smell and it was just one individual making a spark in the lighter.” And that was when “the worst night” of Tiago’s life began.
“I thought: ‘I’m disgraced!‘”, said the driver, in another interview he gave to . At that time in the morning, he was completely “alone. Luckily he was wearing his uniform coat. The coat was held up by the elastic on one sleeve, because the rest of it burned. I was dragging my coat and they tried to take my coat off, but I I had so much pain in my hand who said ‘don’t let them take off your coat’”.
Com third degree burns on the bodyhe still had to walk about 150 meters to the ambulance, which was unable to pass because the burning bus prevented circulation on the road. In the hospital, he was in agony until he was induced into a coma that lasted a week. He was between life and death.
“My eyes — from what they tell me, I don’t know, I was all connected, ventilated —, I had my eyes out of my face. The swelling was so bad on my head that my eyes were out of my face. I don’t remember anything”, says Tiago Cacais.
“When the memory comes back to the accident, I just asked myself ‘why me?, why didn’t they let me out and set the bus on fire?’”, he recalls.
The serious injuries I suffer can stay with me for the rest of my life: “I look at my hands and I don’t like my hands. I don’t have patience. Because it’s a slow recovery. I have a lot of pain, I have pain with the cold. I can’t be in the sun, I can’t be cold, in other words, they marked me for no apparent reason.”
“Justice is for these people to be arrested and pay for what they did to me because this will be a milestone for my entire life”, says the driver, who says he feels “relieved” that the suspects have already been arrested.
Tiago had already survived cancer, and faces yet another concern — his father has Alzheimer’s. Despite life’s setbacks, he says wants to return to normality.
“I insist on going back to work. I want to continue being a driver. My hands are burned, but the first thing I thought, when I came out of the coma, full of pain, horrible pain, was: ‘I want to go back to my job.’”, he told DN.
The attack on Tiago Cacais is considered the “most serious” of those that followed the death of Odair Moniz, which triggered days of great turmoil in Greater Lisbon. Yesterday, the three suspects were arrested and charged with attempted murder.
