Wishing to celebrate the end of the school year, the sixth grade class (around 11 years of age) of the Las Condes school - a Teresian institute -organized an outing to an athletic club owned by the Bank of Chile in Santiago, Chile. Twenty-three girls, together with their teachers, took part. Marcela Antúnez Riveros, an intelligent, lively eleven year old girl who was with the group, recounts her story below :

"It was December 7th, 1988 when we went to the Bank of Chile’s club. I think we were 28 students. Upon arriving, we went to change in order to go swimming. Later in the day we ate lunch. They fed us chicken with fries and a drink. I ate in my swimming suit, all wet underneath my dress. When we had finished eating, they told us to wait at least an hour before going back to swim. I did not know how to swim too well, but I went to the swimming pool anyway where there was an area that was not very deep and where there was also another part that was deeper. I began feeling sick in my stomach when all of a sudden I began to slip. I called for help but no one heard me. There were two girls nearby. I tried yelling to them, but they did not hear me. As I sank, I began swallowing water and felt as if I was suffocating. I felt completely frozen inside. I considered myself lost as I sank even more." It was a little after 3:00 pm.

How long did Marcela remain underwater before the lifeguard, Juan Carlos, saved her? We do not know. As soon as her classmates had realized that she was missing and that there was a shadow at the bottom of the pool, they had begun crying for help. The lifeguard dove quickly into the water to save her. When he brought her up out of the water she was completely blue, her tongue hung from her mouth, her eyes were in the back of her head, and her stomach was inflated. He laid her on the ground beside the pool in order to start giving her first aid.

During this time, the girls were crying and kept saying: "Marcela is dead!" The chaperones were also badly shaken. One of them suggested that they pray to Teresa de Los Andes: "She is the only one who can save her." However, one of the girls asked, "Why should we pray if she is already dead?" Other girls responded, "If she is dead, then, Teresa, bring her back to life." Marcela in fact was not dead but in grave danger. There was no sign of life in spite of the mouth to mouth resuscitation and the heart massages that were given her.

How long did she remain beside the pool? For several minutes according to some witnesses. Because of the desperate situation, no one had even thought to call an ambulance. While the girls remained kneeling, begging the intercession of Teresa de los Andes, Marcela suddenly let out a guttural sound, a sign that the Lord had heard Teresa. However, Marcela fell back into unconsciousness.

She arrived unconscious at the German clinic which was not far from where the accident had taken place. In the ambulance she was given oxygen for the first time. Unfortunately, the swimming pool had been poorly equipped. Her registration at the clinic indicated that it was 3:34 pm when she was brought in, and the diagnosis was listed as grave asphyxiation because of drowning. Doctor Gabriel Muñoz, who had received her into the emergency room, declared during the Process: "I have had the misfortune of receiving many children asphyxiated by drowning. Given Marcela’s state at her arrival, I expected two or three days of suffering. Lack of oxygen, due to drowning, causes damage to various organs — the brain, the kidneys, the heart, and the liver. In the days that follow, swelling of the brain and heart problems, similar to a heart attack, occur. My prognosis was very pessimistic when Marcela arrived. If someone would have asked me my opinion when she arrived, my prognosis would have been very pessimistic. If someone would have asked me my opinion twelve hours later, my prognosis would have been very good."

In fact, it wasn’t twelve hours but only one hour later when Marcela was transferred from the emergency room to intensive care because she was then breathing on her own. She would recover completely. When Doctor Erazo, a child neurologist, saw her he was astonished to see her doing so well. Having read the results of the examinations made in the emergency room reporting how much acidity had been in Marcela’s system, he acknowledged that she had underwent a serious accumulation of carbonic acid in the organism, something which occurs when a person ceases to breathe. A cardio-respiratory stop of 3-4 minutes can cause, at least temporarily, neurological damage for a relatively long time. Beyond 4 minutes, such damage can be permanent. Given the state in which Doctor Muñoz received Marcela, he estimated that she had been under water for more than five minutes, to which must be added the time it took to pull her out of the water, and also the time she remained on the side of the pool without breathing.

Medical science can give no explanation for this case. Such was the unanimous decision of five doctors who examined her at Rome for the Congregation for the Cause of Saints; they declared her case extraordinary. Naturally speaking, even if she would have survived from the drowning she would have remained in a permanent vegetative state, but now, thanks to the intercession of Teresa de los Andes, who had been invoked from the very beginning as well as during the four days that Marcela was at the German clinic, Marcela recovered completely without the least after-effect.