The unknown heroine under the palms – and the miracle she made possible
- Stefan
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
We are looking for Oliver's lifesaver
The past few weeks have been filled with media coverage — especially in the United States, but also in Mexico and Germany.
Sometimes, we can hardly believe what we have lived through.
We could talk for hours — about Oliver, the accident, the time in the hospital in Mexico, the doctors’ predictions that he wouldn’t survive, the weeks after his discharge, how we found Dr. Bydon, the miracle with the foundation, the surgeries in Chicago, the cardiac arrests, the strokes, and how Oliver has fought his way back, step by step.
No one knows how far this journey will go. Maybe only Oliver does.
But there is hope — hope that he can regain so much, maybe even almost everything.
That hope drives Laura and me every single day. We spend an incredible amount of time by his side.
Love as our driving force
I often think about the accident, and about the moment I realized that Oliver was gone.
In that instant — the moment I lost him — I felt all the love I had for him.
That love pushed me to unbuckle his seatbelt and pass him through the shattered window.
I could have frozen in fear, afraid to touch him. But something inside me — maybe love, maybe instinct, maybe both — made me act, made me hand him out first, even though I knew there was no life left in his little body.
Between life and death
Today we talk about miracles, about surgeries, about his will to live and how he accepts his situation.
Every report reminds us of what we have been through, and how rare and unlikely it is for a child only one year and ten months old to survive such an accident.
I did my own research and discovered that 90 percent of children with this kind of injury die on the way to the hospital.
Because Oliver’s heart wasn’t beating, he couldn’t die on the way there.
For him, it was the other way around — he came back to life in the hospital.
The circle under the palm trees
Laura and I only recently talked about it again.
Laura doesn’t remember the accident or what happened. I told her what I saw.
I knew that Oliver was lying outside, on the grassy median under the palm trees, surrounded by people trying to resuscitate him.
I couldn’t see much — the airbags were hanging from the roof — and at the same time, I was trying to get the twins out of the car.
They were alive, but I didn’t know if they had internal injuries.
I handed out Sebastian first, then Julian.
When I finally got out, my children were gone. There was still no ambulance, but they were already taken away.
I didn’t know where they were. I only knew that Oliver wasn’t alive.
The first miracle
What I didn’t know at that moment was that one of the first miracles was already happening — the very foundation of why we are still a family today.
When the accident happened, there were many witnesses. In one of those cars, there was a doctor.
She was one of the people standing in the circle under the palm trees.
Together with my sister-in-law Ana, she began resuscitating Oliver.
The whole family had been driving together before, in four cars.
So when the accident happened, everyone was there right away.
Because the place was so remote and an ambulance would have taken too long, my brother-in-law Antonio and his wife Ana decided to take Oliver and the twins to the hospital themselves — the doctor went with them.
For about 10 to 15 minutes, Oliver was resuscitated in the back seat, alternately by Ana and this doctor.
At the hospital, the paramedics and doctors took over — and after another ten minutes, Oliver’s heartbeat came back.
That was the moment that changed everything.
The moment that allows us to still be together today.
People who didn’t give up
It’s not easy to think about what happened that day and in the minutes afterward.
But people we love — and complete strangers — did everything they could to bring Oliver back.
And what makes it even more remarkable is that they must have sensed that something was seriously wrong with his neck.
But they didn’t give up. None of them did.
It wasn’t their child.
And that’s what makes it so extraordinary.
For that, we will be forever grateful.
Even the decision to fly with Oliver to Mexico City — simply incredible.
Laura and I were still in the hospital when Antonio and Ana decided to fly with Oliver, even though they had three children of their own — and left them behind selflessly to save him.
We are looking for Oliver’s lifesaver
Through everything we have experienced, we were able to witness, share, and document almost everything — except for those first, crucial minutes after the accident.
We are endlessly grateful to my sister-in-law Ana, my brother-in-law Antonio, and the rest of the family who were there — for everything they organized, decided, and did when we couldn’t do it ourselves.
And we are also deeply grateful to this doctor or nurse.
We don’t know who she is. Maybe she was on vacation, maybe she lives there.
We don’t know. No names were exchanged, no phone numbers, no photos. In that moment, none of that mattered.
But now, months later, we would love to know who this person is — the woman who helped save Oliver’s life.
Maybe she follows us here, maybe she prefers to stay anonymous.
Maybe someone knows someone who helped resuscitate a child on April 17, 2025, between 2:50 p.m. and 3:30 p.m., on a grassy area under palm trees near Zihuatanejo Airport and Playa Larga.
If so — please reach out to us. It would mean the world to us.
