Agony of father whose son, 2, fell down 350ft well
HOPE was fading yesterday for a toddler who fell down a 350ft well.
As rescuers mounted a huge operation to find two-year-old Julen Rosello, his father revealed the anguish of hearing his son’s last cry.
Julen vanished down a ten-inch borehole as his father Jose prepared a lunchtime paella on land near Totalan in southern Spain.
Mr Rosello and his wife Vicky, both 29, have spent day and night near the spot where Julen disappeared on Sunday.
Civil Guard officers have lowered a rotating camera into the borehole on a robot. They have yet to find the youngster, but according to a Spanish government spokesman samples of his hair have been found in the well, confirming his parents’ account that he had fallen in.
Police insist they are working on the basis that Julen is still alive, but privately officials have admitted the chances he will have survived so long underground are slim.
The well, on a family-owned property about 12 miles from Malaga, is too narrow for adults to enter, so yesterday work was continuing on the excavation of two tunnels that could give access to it.
One is a vertical hole running parallel to the existing well and the other is a horizontal tunnel being dug across the hillside in the direction of where Julen is believed to be trapped. If he does not survive, it would be the second tragedy to hit the family in less than two years. Julen’s three-year- old brother Oliver died in May 2017 after suffering a heart attack believed to have been linked to a congenital defect.
Mr Rosello was looking after Julen when he fell down the well.
‘He was only a few feet away,’ said Mr Rosello. ‘I went to get a couple of logs for the fire for the paella and he began to run. I ran towards him. My cousin was a bit nearer and threw herself on the ground as I reached the hole.
‘We saw how he fell down the hole, my cousin more than me. He had already gone. I heard him cry at first but then I didn’t hear him cry any more.’
Mr Rosello added: ‘ We’re dead inside but with the hope we have an angel watching over us who is going to help him to come out alive as soon as possible.’
Asked what was giving him strength, he fought back tears to say: ‘Knowing that I’m going to see my son alive.’ In an emotional message to his son, he said: ‘The only thing I can say is, “Stay calm Julen. Daddy loves you, and your brother is going to help us.”’