A HONEYMOON turned to disaster for a Barnsley couple who were caught up in the Majorca floods with their three-year-old daughter.
Graham and Bethan Poulton had to negotiate their flooded hotel complex in pitch black, clinging to their young daughter, with only light from the lightning strikes guiding their way.
The couple, of New Lodge, had been staying at the Hotel Globales Bouganvilla in Sa Coma, on Majorca’s east coast, with daughter Ella and Bethan’s grandparents, when the deadly storm hit flooding their bedroom.
“Ella had slipped a few times so her clothes were wet through, so my priority was getting her out of those clothes,” said Bethan.
“We wrapped her up in bed sheets and Graham sat with her while I went out. I wanted to know my nan and granddad were OK as well, and let them know we were safe.
“It was hard to walk through the resort. The pools had flooded and the water had a current, it was a bit like fighting a losing battle.
“The only light was the lightning, you’d think it would be quite scary but I was actually waiting for the lightning as a bit of relief to see where I was going.”
Bethan had to leave her husband and daughter in their flooded room, going with hotel staff to find another room in a less affected part of the hotel complex.
Graham, 28, said: “The electricity must have cut off because throughout the whole resort there wasn’t any light. There wasn’t even any moonlight.
“I’ve heard the term ‘pitch black,’ but I know what that actually is now. You couldn’t see at all, that was the scariest thing.
“Ella was a little trooper. She kept asking for the lights to be switched on and I had to tell her we couldn’t. I just kept making up stories to try take her mind off it while we were sat in the room. I didn’t know my bearings, I couldn’t even see Ella, but we could still hear the thunder and lightning. And the police helicopter was flying round looking for people, it was really low which got my heart pounding.
“I wondered what would have happened if the lightning had hit it, because it was right over the top of us.”
Bethan made sure her grandparents were safe, before returning to the room and heading with her family to a new room where they spent the night.
She said: “It was pitch black and I was clinging to Ella because I couldn’t see her, but we couldn’t hold her because we had cold clothes on and wanted to keep her warm.
“We only had Graham’s phone, I had lost mine at that point, which was dying so we couldn’t use the light.”
Graham and Bethan, who married only two weeks ago, flew out last week on their honeymoon along with daughter, Ella, and Bethan’s grandparents.
The couple had spent Tuesday swimming with dolphins at nearby amusement park Marineland.
Graham said: “Maybe if our bus was thirty minutes later, we could’ve been stuck in it.
“We were on the bus when we saw a bit of cloud build-up, and I looked at my phone which said in an hour there were going to be thunderstorms. But it never said it would be that bad.”
The couple safely returned on Wednesday afternoon with Bethan’s grandparents.
“It’s all a bit surreal at the moment, it’s still settling in,” said Graham.
“When we woke up in the hotel on Wednesday morning we didn’t really know that much about what had happened.
“It was really calm, there was no wind or rain and the skies were blue.
“It was only when we were back on the bus to the airport that we saw the scale of the destruction there were cars on barriers, trees on car windscreens, there was rubbish piled up at the side of the road.
“Then we found out there was a couple that have died, we started searching stories on the internet, and we’re still reading stories about more people losing their lives and going missing.
“And it hit just how lucky we were.”
