Miguel’s wish fulfilled, the boy on the Atleti-Betis stretcher

Miguel’s story on Sunday at the Wanda Metropolitano, perhaps, would have gone unnoticed if Javi Gómez, a journalist from Cadena Cope, had not published on Twitter that photo taken by @toysvintage, Atletico fan, after 1-0. In it, Miguel was seen, on a medicalized stretcher, watching Atlético-Betis with the jerseys of the two teams on his body and a brief text: “The image of the party”. It quickly went viral. “We were going in a more discreet plan, fulfilling the wish of a patient, but that photo came out and it has had a lot of significance”, José Manuel Salas, doctor and co-founder of the Ambulancia del Desire Foundation, who made this possible: Miguel, a 16-year-old boy from Yecla, Murcia, watching the teams of his life (“his heart is half Betis and the other, Atleti”) on Sunday at the Metropolitano.

“Miguel is an extraordinary boy,” says José Manuel. With a chronic advanced disease, in palliative, I had a wish, to attend Atlético-Betis. “A will that his parents asked of us, which would motivate him a lot.” Miguel is at home. It was Eva, the head of the palliative medical team at the Virgen de la Arrixaca hospital, Murcia, who contacted Ambulancia del Desire. Gabi, ‘El Capi’, was their contact, the first person they wrote to know if they could do it, fulfill it. The latter immediately got involved. He asked Koke. The Atlético captain opened the doors of Wanda. “That the game was at 4:15 p.m. made things easier for us. We could go and come back during the day, without having to spend the night, due to the medical needs of the transfer.” Because Miguel traveled in the Ambulance of Desire from Murcia for four hours (“they made him very short, from the emotion he felt”) with two emergency health technicians (both named Miguel Ángel), a nurse (Mercedes) and a doctor (José Manuel). Everyone by his side at the party. Also his parents and uncles. All deeply excited. Seeing Miguel’s wish fulfilled was everyone’s wish.

It is the number 100 that the Ambulance of Desire carries out in Spain. A striking yellow ambulance with the emergency logo from which springs a butterfly that, since 2018, sponsored by four people, three nurses (Laura, Carolina and Manolo) and a doctor (José Manuel), moves through Spain full of that responsibility: fulfill wishes, “simple ones, go to a daughter’s wedding, for example, see the sea, visit a stadium or hear for the last time the ticking of a clock at home, which suddenly you can no longer do when the disease comes “, explains José Manuel. Present today in 16 countries, it all started in Holland, in 2007. The ambulance driver Kees Veldboer was transferring a patient, Mario Stefanutto, in his ambulance when he was called from the hospital: the chemotherapy session was delayed. Suddenly a dilemma: what was Kess doing? Go back the way they had come and come back later, at the scheduled time, or entertain the waiting time with something? He opted for the latter. She turned. He looked at Mario and asked, “Is there something you would like to do?”. Mario trembled. Yes, there was. Sailor, since he fell ill he had not returned to the Port of Rotterdam. That’s where Kess’s ambulance headed. That was his gift. Those hours, there, Mario again in front of the sea, happy, they made a ‘what if’ grow in his head. That project. An ambulance to fulfill last wishes. Those simple things that, one day, can no longer be done. And many need, to leave in order, calm, in peace, to live in the midst of illness, almost at the end, that oasis of happiness.

The 1,600 wishes in Holland

“In Holland, where it is already well established, 16,000 wishes have already been fulfilled“, lists José Manuel. With eight ambulances and trips every day. When the Fundación Ambulancia del Deseo began to germinate as a project to do in Spain (“After Kess was invited to the I International Congress on Humanization of Emergencies, Emergencies and Disasters in 2018) he traveled to the Netherlands to learn and they saw how his depth is already immense there.” They saw us appear in a place and people they applauded us, for that wish they knew we were going to make come true. There, the end-of-life treatment is more open than in Spain. “Three years (” and a halt by the Covid “) later, the Ambulancia del Desire Foundation has two vehicles and two headquarters, in Murcia, which deals with the entire south, and another in Asturias, for the north. All wishes are free, all who participate are volunteers, “nobody charges.” Emergency technicians, health workers, nurses, doctors. The payment goes much deeper. And unforgettable. Like the Wanda. As with Miguel.

“When the game ended we had a surprise prepared for him that he didn’t know about,” says José Manuel. Go down to the locker room, meet the footballers. The first to greet him was Cholo, according to the doctor.. He encouraged her, a hug. Then De Paul, João Félix, Correa or Hermoso did. “The last to arrive was Koke.” He did it with a shirt signed by everyone and boots used by him in a Champions League match. A Koke who could not help but be moved by the last moment of surprise: Joaquín Sánchez. “You know how Joaquín is, all of Spain knows him, a phenomenon, and he also came over to greet Miguel, whom he knew from another occasion. They talked about his things, and they got excited. A lot.” José Manuel still does it when he tells it. The emotion of Joaquín, the emotion of Koke, the emotion of Miguel, who did not stop taking photos, look at everything, applaud, on Sunday at the Metropolitan. And he forgot, at least for a few hours, his illness.