Girls suffered shotgun injuries; undergoing surgeries
Two young women are in hospital today after an horrific ordeal near a dam in Castelo de Vide (Portalegre) in which they both suffered what appear to be life changing shotgun injuries.
The pair, aged 17 and 22, were attacked by a Spanish man, resident in the area, say reports.
According to radioportalegre, the 74-year-old tied the terrified women the intention of raping them”.
Both appear to have been shot: one has been referred for plastic surgery; the other is being treated in orthopedics – but the sequence of events that led up to their rescue has not been fully explained.
Suffice it to say that when they were discovered, the young women were both naked from the waist down, tied up and in a “serious condition”.
Emergency teams managed to stabilise both before they were transported to the nearest hospital, and then evacuated “as a matter of urgency” to Lisbon’s São José Hospital.
Speaking to Rádio Portalegre, a spokesperson for the Alto Alentejo Local Health Unit, Ilídio Pinto Cardoso, said that the 22-year-old was shot in the lower back.
SIC Notícias has added that the younger girl was shot in the hand.
SIC suggests that the attacker “fled into the water of the Póvoa e Meadas dam” when he realised that GNR agents had arrived.
How the girls managed to raise the police is not clear. SIC has said that the alarm was sounded by “a person who had been warned of the situation by the victims”.
A shotgun and an airsoft gun were ‘seized’ – and the Spanish man “eventually arrested”. He is due to be presented before a magistrate today.
According to the Alto Alentejo Sub-Regional Emergency and Civil Protection Command, the alert for this incident, classified as an “attempted murder”, was received just before midday yesterday.
The rescue operation involved 25 operatives, firefighters and the GNR, aided by 11 vehicles, including an Emergency and Resuscitation Medical Vehicle (VMER) from Portalegre.
The case is being handled by PJ judicial police.
SIC adds that one of the victims lives in Castelo de Vide, the other in Lisbon.
