Woman, 21, cheated death in Brazil nightclub fire which killed 238 - only to die a week later in car crash

• Jessica de Lima Rohl helped organise party at nightclub in Santa Maria
• The 21-year-old was meant to go, and even sold tickets for the event
• But as she was getting ready her boyfriend asked her not to go
• 238 died in Brazil's worst nightclub fire in more than a decade
• Then last Thursday Jessica and her boyfriend died in tragic smash

By MATT ROPER

PUBLISHED: 13:50, 6 February 2013 | UPDATED: 15:52, 6 February 2013

A woman who cheated death in the Brazilian nightclub fire after making a last-minute decision to stay at home was killed a week later in a freak road accident, it was reported today.

Jessica de Lima Rohl, 21, helped organise the party for university students at the Kiss nightclub in Santa Maria, south Brazil, and sold tickets for the event.

But as she was getting ready to leave her home on the night of the doomed freshers' ball which left 238 dead, her boyfriend called asking for her not to go.

Tragic: Jessica de Lima Rohl, 21, helped organise the party for university students at the Kiss nightclub in Santa Maria, south Brazil, and died a week later in a car crash

Miss de Lima Rohl travelled to the town of Toledo, where her boyfriend Mr Stefanel had been working, and both were killed in a crash. This is the remains of the VW Golf they were travelling

Despite most of her friends being at the event, agribusiness student Miss de Lima Rohl listened to the pleas of 20-year-old Adriano Stefanel - who was living in another town - and stayed at home.

Hours later flames would rip through the packed club after a band member lit a firework on stage which ignited the club's foam roof.

Many died after inhaling toxic fumes while others were crushed in a battle to escape the blaze in the early hours of January 27 -  the worst nightclub fire in more than a decade.

 

Mr Stefanel's father Nilton, 48, who lives in the town of Silveira Martins, near Santa Maria, told Brazil's Terra website: 'He probably had a feeling about something and he asked for her not to go, and she ended up not going.

'In the early morning of Sunday morning he called home in desperation, crying, having heard about the tragedy, asking if his 16-year-old sister had gone to the club, but she also had decided to stay at home.

'Jessica was so happy and thankful for having listened to his advice. From that moment she regarded him as her guardian angel, and he felt like a hero for having saved somebody.'

The moment the band Gurizada Fandangueria, famed for their use of on stage pyrotechnics, let off a flare which is believed to have started the fire at Kiss Club in Santa Maria 

Horrific: A crowd stands outside the Kiss nightclub as the nightmare unfolded

Aftermath: A view from inside the Kiss nightclub in Santa Maria after the blaze

Firefighters battled to put out the fire which tore through the Kiss Club in Santa Maria, southern Brazil

30,000 people from Brazil's Santa Maria held a commemorative march through the city and back to Kiss nightclub where the disaster happened

A day later Mr Stefanel posted a message to those who had lost loved ones in the tragedy in the town.

It read: 'After what happened in Santa Maria, so many people I knew lost their lives. To those who are still here, thank God and pray for those people who have gone, and for their families that they will have the strength to get over such a great loss.'

On Thursday, Miss de Lima Rohl travelled to the town of Toledo, where Mr Stefanel had been working, and the two planned to return together to Santa Maria by car on Saturday night - a distance of 82 miles.

But according to police the couple had driven just a few metres when their Volkswagon Golf collided head-on with a truck.

Miss de Lima Rohl died instantly, and Mr Stefanel - who would have turned 21 the next day - died later in hospital.

His devastated father Nilton said: 'He would always be calling us saying he felt alone and that he wanted to come back home as soon as he found a job here. Now he has come back, but in a different way.

'When a person's mission here on earth comes to an end, whether in a nightclub, or on the road, or where ever, when their destiny doesn't give them another way out, there's nothing left for us to do but accept the will of God.'

He added that the bodies of both Miss de Lima Rohl and Mr Stefanel are to be buried together in Mr Stefanel's hometown of Silveira Martins. 'It was Jessica's own family who requested it,' he said.