RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Arianne Risso worked every day to help her patients fight cancer. That made her life even more heartbreaking when her life, along with those of seven other doctors, ended abruptly. after a plane fell from the sky in Brazil.
She had boarded the plane on Friday in Cascavel, Parana state, bound for Guarulhos International Airport in Sao Paulo. The plane crashed in the city of Vinhedo, and images of the ATR 72 twin-engine turboprop diving into a spin horrified Brazilians.
The plane crashed into the backyard of a house in a gated community and turned into a flaming wreck. All 62 people on board were killed, including all eight doctors, according to a statement from the Parana Medical Council. Risso and at least one colleague were on their way to an oncology conference to learn more about a disease that kills tens of thousands of Brazilians each year.
“These were people used to saving lives, and now they have lost theirs in such tragic circumstances,” Paraná Governor Ratinho Júnior told reporters in Vinhedo on Friday, adding that he had friends on board the doomed plane. “It’s a sad day.”
Risso’s cousin, Stephany Albuquerque, recalled in a phone interview that the two often played together when she was young. Even then, Risso wanted to be a doctor, and as she grew up, she became so invested in her studies that she rarely went out on the town. Medicine was her calling.
“Arianne cared for people who were terminally ill at a time in their lives when they were struggling. But Arianne was always available and did everything with a lot of love,” Albuquerque told The Associated Press by phone from Florida, where she now lives. “She wasn’t the kind of doctor who would tell a patient, ‘This is your disease, take this.’ No, Arianne cared for people. … She would give her personal phone number to patients.”
Risso, 34, was traveling by plane with her colleague Mariana Belim, 31. Both were in residence at the Cascavel Cancer Hospital, and a statement from the institution praised them for the awareness, attention and respect with which they treated their patients.
“It is no wonder that we often receive praise for them. Their love of the profession was very clear,” the hospital said.
Willian Rodrigo Feistler, a general practitioner who grew up in Cascavel, knew six people who died in the accident and was particularly close to Belim, with whom he had studied and with whom he had a 15-year friendship.
“Mariana was a serene woman, with a melancholic temperament, but very intelligent, empathetic and dedicated to her profession,” Feistler said by phone from Cascavel. “She dedicated a large part of her life to her studies and medical training. She had already specialized in clinical medicine and was finishing her specialization in clinical oncology.”
José Roberto Leonel Ferreira, a recently retired physician who also died in the fire, was one of Feistler’s professors during his undergraduate studies. He owned a radiology clinic in Cascavel.
“I discussed several cases with him on several occasions. He was a responsive person who helped other doctors discuss cases to arrive at a diagnosis,” Feistler said.
Brazil’s Federal Council of Medicine said the disappearance of these doctors had left the Brazilian medical world in mourning and expressed solidarity with the victims’ relatives. These doctors were leaving Cascavel in search of knowledge to better care for their patients, Brazil’s Federal Council of Medicine said.
For now, there are more questions than answers about the accident. Metsul, one of Brazil’s most reputable weather companies, said Friday that there were reports of severe frost in Sao Paulo state at the time of the accident. Local media cited experts who said that could be a potential cause, though others cautioned against jumping to conclusions.
The plane’s two “black boxes” — one with flight data and the other with cockpit audio — have been recovered. The Air Force’s Center for Investigation and Prevention of Air Accidents has begun analyzing them at its laboratory in the country’s capital, Brasilia. Airports Minister Silvio Costa Filho said the center is also opening a criminal investigation. The airline Voepass and the Franco-Italian manufacturer ATR are participating in the investigations, they said in statements.
All of Brazil – and especially the victims’ relatives – are eager to know why these people were taken from this world.
“It was not God who took my daughter, it was not God, because he chose her to save lives,” Risso’s mother, Fatima Albuquerque, told reporters on Sunday. She blamed the disaster on profit-hungry capitalists and the negligence of authorities.
Stephany Albuquerque echoed his outrage.
“I just hope that prosecutors investigate,” she said. “I hope that justice is served, because that’s the least my cousin and the 61 other people deserve.”
