Fabian Cataño is a London surviver. In 2005 he was badly injured in the 7/7 bombings, but came back from 2 years of rehabilitation to build his cafe in Seven Sisters indoor market. In March 2020 Fabian spent 30 days in ICU with COVID, after which doctors, with little hope, told the family they had to switch off the machines; he would breathe or die. He breathed.
Fabian remembers the fever, the cough, the aching and the diarrhoea. He called 111 but was asked to stay at home. After another week he was struggling to breathe so badly that he rang again and was admitted to hospital.
“From the moment I entered hospital to the moment I woke up 30 days later I don't remember a thing. The doctors told me it was a miracle, that 12 to 13 people dies around me every day in my ward, but I kept going….”
“All I remember are the intense dreams that started to flood back after I woke. An old woman was always there beckoning me towards death, saying that it was all OK, that I had worked hard that I didn’t have to suffer any more and I deserved to rest. But I refused her every time.”
Indeed, when Fabian emerged from hospital his life battles continued. On returning to his café in Seven Sisters indoor market he found they had closed the market all together. During lockdown, the developers, with whom the traders had been battling for years, took out the extractors from all the cafés, without consultation.
The Latin American indoor market was more than just a business to Fabian; it was the lifeline that got him out of his deep depression after 7/7, when a friend invited him and suggested he open a spot. “Being in that place, with everyone from the community, made me feel at home, it gave me comfort and the strength to start life again.”
Despite the problems at Seven Sisters, and his close shave with COVID, Fabian counts his blessings. He has opened a café just across the street from the indoor market, a little Colombia on Seven Sisters High Street, which oozes as much life as does this Colombian from Palmira. And he has, after all, survived London’s two biggest catastrophes of the last 15 years.
Watch Fabian’s full story as part of Fuerza London - a film commemorating the experience of London's Latin community during COVID, through music, dance, poetry and real life stories.
