I prepared myself to die, but I had to get out of there
En el transcurso de una noche de rodaje que debía ser rutinaria, un susto en carretera se convirtió en el umbral inesperado hacia una conversación mucho más antigua. Cristina Cifuentes y Alba Carrillo, sacudidas por el zigzagueo de un autobús que rozó la barrera de la calzada, descubrieron que el miedo compartido tiene la extraña virtud de disolver las capas superficiales y revelar lo que verdaderamente importa. Para Cifuentes, el incidente no fue el acontecimiento central, sino la llave que abrió el recuerdo de un accidente de moto en 2013 que la tuvo veinte días en la UCI y que la obligó a decidir, desde el fondo del dolor, por qué quería seguir viviendo. La fragilidad del momento presente, como tantas veces en la historia humana, se convirtió en espejo de una herida más profunda y más verdadera.
- El autobús comenzó a zigzaguear sin control después de que otro vehículo invadiera su carril, y durante unos segundos ambas mujeres creyeron que iban a volcar.
- El golpe contra la barrera detuvo el vehículo, pero el impacto emocional siguió reverberando: Carrillo sentía el corazón desbocado y Cifuentes reconocía en su propia calma el eco de algo vivido antes.
- El alivio de estar ilesas abrió paso a una conversación íntima sobre la muerte, el miedo y el amor filial que rara vez encuentra espacio en un plató de televisión.
- Cifuentes reveló que en 2013 un accidente de moto la dejó al borde de la muerte durante veinte días de UCI, y que fue el deseo de no perderse ni un solo día junto a su hijo lo que la ancló a la vida.
- Lo que comenzó como un incidente de tráfico sin víctimas se transformó en un testimonio sobre la voluntad de vivir y sobre cómo el trauma pasado puede resurgir, intacto, ante cualquier destello de peligro.
El autobús en el que viajaban Cristina Cifuentes y Alba Carrillo durante el rodaje del programa Hasta el fin del mundo empezó a moverse de forma inquietante: un zigzagueo brusco, la sensación de que el vehículo se inclinaba demasiado, y luego el golpe seco contra una barrera lateral. Otro coche se había cruzado en su carril y el conductor no tuvo más opción que frenar con violencia. Los daños fueron materiales. Ellas, ilesas.
Pero el cuerpo tarda en olvidar el miedo. Carrillo se llevó la mano al pecho; Cifuentes le tomó la mano. Cuando la adrenalina comenzó a remitir, lo que quedó no fue alivio sino una necesidad de hablar, de darle nombre a lo que acababa de rozarlas.
Fue entonces cuando Cifuentes habló de la muerte sin el tono solemne que suele adoptarse ante las cámaras. Dijo que morir no era lo que le aterraba: lo que no podía soportar era la idea de perderse un solo día junto a su hijo. Y desde ahí, casi sin transición, abrió la puerta a 2013.
Aquel año, un accidente de moto la dejó en la UCI durante veinte días. Su cuerpo estaba roto y el desenlace era incierto. En algún momento de esa espera, Cifuentes llegó a prepararse para no salir. Pero algo —la imagen de su hijo, la certeza de lo que aún quería vivir— la hizo elegir quedarse. «Tuve que salir de allí», dijo, con la sencillez de quien no necesita adornar lo que ya es suficientemente grande.
El susto en la carretera no era la historia. Era solo el detonante. La historia verdadera llevaba años guardada, esperando el momento exacto de ser contada.
The bus was moving strangely. Alba Carrillo felt it first—a sickening zigzag, the weight of the vehicle tilting as though the road itself had tilted. She and Cristina Cifuentes had settled in for what was supposed to be an ordinary night of filming on the reality show Hasta el fin del mundo, but within seconds the ordinary had vanished. The bus lurched. It felt, to both women, like they were about to tip. Then it stopped hard, metal meeting something solid.
The driver's voice came through the shock: everything was fine, nothing serious. But Cifuentes could see the fear in Carrillo's face, and she reached for her hand. "Steady," she said, though she had felt it too—that moment when a vehicle stops obeying you, when physics becomes a threat instead of a given. Cifuentes described the angle of the tilt with her hand, showing how far the bus had leaned. The explanation came a few minutes later: another car had cut into their lane, forcing the driver to swerve hard into a roadside barrier. The damage was material only. The bus was still functional.
When they understood they were safe, Cifuentes and Carrillo held each other. Carrillo's chest was tight with adrenaline. "Something hit me right here," she said, her hand over her heart. The fear had been real, and now it was draining away, leaving something else behind—a need to talk about what had just happened, and what it meant.
That conversation turned inward. Cifuentes began to speak about death, but not in the way someone usually does on television. She said she did not fear dying. What she feared was missing a single day with her son. Carrillo listened and nodded. She understood. It was then that Cifuentes opened a door to her own past, to a moment when that fear had been tested in the most brutal way.
In 2013, a motorcycle accident had nearly killed her. She had spent twenty days in intensive care, her body broken, her life uncertain. In those days, she had made a choice—or rather, she had found the will to make one. "I prepared myself to die because I couldn't take any more," she said, "but I had to get out of there." The words were simple, but they carried the weight of someone who had stood at the edge and chosen to step back. It was not bravado. It was the testimony of someone who had learned, in the hardest way possible, what she was willing to live for.
A bus scare on a television set had opened a window into survival, into the calculus of fear and love that shapes how we move through the world. For Cifuentes, the near-accident was not the story—it was only a trigger. The real story was older, deeper, and it had been waiting for the right moment to be told.
Notable Quotes
I prepared myself to die because I couldn't take any more, but I had to get out of there— Cristina Cifuentes, reflecting on her 2013 motorcycle accident
If I had known what that journey held, I would have stayed on the ground— Alba Carrillo, after the bus incident
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
What strikes you most about that moment when the bus started to lose control?
The speed of it. One second you're settling in for the night, the next your body knows something is wrong before your mind catches up. That's when you understand how fragile the ordinary is.
And then Cifuentes reached for Carrillo's hand. Was that instinct, or something else?
Both. In a crisis, you reach for another person because it's human. But what happened after—the conversation about death, about her son—that wasn't automatic. That was something deeper surfacing because the fear had cracked them both open.
She talked about preparing to die during her motorcycle accident. That's a specific kind of surrender, isn't it?
It is. But it's not what people usually mean by surrender. She was saying: I accepted I might not survive, but I refused to give up trying. There's a difference between those two things.
Do you think the bus incident would have triggered that memory if they hadn't been frightened?
Probably not. Fear is a key. It unlocks things we usually keep locked. A near-miss reminds you that you've already survived worse, or it reminds you what you're actually afraid of losing.
What does that moment tell us about how trauma works?
That it doesn't disappear. It waits. And sometimes a small echo—a bus tilting, a moment of helplessness—is enough to bring the whole thing back, not as pain, but as clarity.