Nadalina (19) survived the disco of death: ‘I was ambitious, I gave everything for the title of Valedictorian! Do you know what that title is worth in intensive
Listen to the story
Struggle – that is all that remains. Nothing else. And the other survivors, and the parents who lost their children, each of us carries a stone around our neck that we can and must bear – these are the words of Nadalina Grozdanova, a girl, practically still a child, 19 years old, who survived the disco of death in Kočani. And who will forever carry that 16 March 2025 on her face and in her heart. The day that claimed 63 lives. Innocent, only just begun.
New Belgrade. The day is gloomy and rainy. The elegant clinic of Dr Jasmina Kozarev. Finally, the conversation. I have known about the girls from Kočani whom she treats for a long time. I waited for them to be able to speak. She enters – warm brown eyes and a broad smile. A big girl. Covered, head wrapped. Smaller scars emerge on her cheeks and reveal that the worst is beneath the bandages. Nadalina. It evokes the famous song by Oliver Dragojević. A rare name, especially for Macedonia. Born in 2006, she was named after her grandmother Nada, but adapted to the 21st century. The very same century in which she would experience an unimaginable tragedy.
The life of a final-year student at a secondary vocational school for chemistry and technology was perfect. Valedictorian. Versatile, plays the piano, performs with the school orchestra. The child of doctors, she plans to enrol in medical school… Everything is going as it should. Until 16 March.
“It was Saturday, we were celebrating our best friend’s 19th birthday at her place. Then the five of us went to the DNK band’s performance. At first everything was normal. A DJ, then the band DNK. Packed, we were about the third row from the stage. Pyrotechnics start, everything is usual. We don’t pay attention. And then, within a minute, flames were everywhere,” Nadalina recounts.
Her tone is calm, even, as if we are talking about everyday things, chatting.
“We ran towards the exit, the only one, and there were more than 600 of us. Everyone pushing towards the door. A crush. My friends managed to get out, I didn’t. A panic attack started, I lost consciousness. The last image I have is people screaming, trying to get out. When I came round, everything was dark. I wasn’t even aware that something serious had happened. It may be that subconsciously I’m trying to erase everything I saw, not to remember anything. When I opened my eyes, I only knew that I was trapped and that I had to get out. Chaos. I don’t even know how I managed, if you believe me. That’s some higher power, it’s not something you can do on your own. I remember passing through the door, but what was around me – no. Everything is erased,” Nadalina says as the clinic door slowly opens and Sanela, a companion in suffering, enters.
Teacher Sanela Davitkova (26), survivor of the disco of death in Kočani; PHOTO CREDIT: Boba Nikolic/KURIR_FOTO NBN
Teacher Sanela Davitkova
‘Stole encouraged me, and he didn’t make it’
Despite everything, Sanela Davitkova is smiling – a 26-year-old teacher from Kočani. She had been looking forward to that night out. DNK was her favourite band.
“We were right in front of the stage, directly under the pyrotechnics. At first we didn’t take the flames seriously, we thought it was part of the performance. Until the singer shouted: ‘Everyone out!’ Almost my entire group managed to get out, but the three of us got stuck right at the door. Only one step separated me from the exit. When I felt the hot air, instinctively I put my hands over my face,” Sanela recounts, thanks to which her face was relatively spared in the inferno of hell, but her hands show the traces of the fiery beast:
“I don’t remember anything after that, I think I briefly lost consciousness. I couldn’t breathe. When I woke up – I was trapped. People piled on top of each other. In that crush and screaming, the first thing I saw in front of the door was my boyfriend. I was calling out to him, but he didn’t recognise me, we were all blackened. He did hear me afterwards. I don’t know how he managed to pull me out. He left me in front of the disco and went back for friends, both of whom were pulled out. Stole, one of them, whom I loved very much, was in the front of the ambulance that took me away. He was very brave. He kept telling me that everything would be fine. And in the end he didn’t make it, he passed away in Belgrade.”
After a short stay in Thessaloniki, she returned home. It was very hard, the scars, everything… But she is getting used to it. And she works.
“At first the pupils looked at me strangely. Now everything is fine,” the young teacher with a gentle face says with a smile.
They were bound by the same night, the same tragedy. And now by the same doctor, with whom they are trying, using lasers, to erase the traces of fire on their skin. Sanela listens to Nadalina.
“I arrived at the hospital, spoke to my parents and literally functioned completely normally. But I don’t remember anything, it’s some kind of shock,” continues the girl with the name from a song, who was then transferred to Thessaloniki. She would stay there for 75 days – with burns on her neck, jaw, and left arm, which is now in a glove.
“When I woke up from the coma in Greece, after the operations and everything, I had no idea why I was in hospital at all. And then, still in intensive care, my parents told me what had happened, how many people had died. I’m grateful to them, that was the right thing to do. That’s when I realised the scale of the tragedy and that people I know had died too. I realised that I had lost friends, classmates,” she begins to cry.
So human. Normal. The doctor hugs her.
“As time passes, you realise that they really are gone. It’s not easy to fight that every day. Constantly. But only the struggle remains. This is my life lesson. Now I understand how transient everything I thought mattered really is. I was very ambitious, I gave everything for the day when I would have that title of Student of the Generation, which I did get. But do you know what that title is worth in intensive care?! Nothing! I just want to be well. That’s all I think about, nothing else. Everything in life can be achieved, as long as you are healthy and alive and your loved ones are with you. Nothing else is needed. That is the difference. And a person isn’t aware that this is the essence,” the tears do not stop.
Her friends from the disco are, thank God, well. They enrolled at university. She took a year out. Physiotherapy, exercises, treatments every day, from the moment she opens her eyes… Then, in due course, more operations. If all goes well, next year she will go to university. To study medicine. Like her parents. Her mother is an internist, her father a gynaecologist. And for the past three weeks also the mayor of Kočani. A town that died on 16 March. A day that may even determine Nadalina’s professional path.
Dr Jasmina Kozarev treats girls who survived the disco tragedy in Kočani; PHOTO CREDIT: Boba Nikolic/KURIR_FOTO NBN
Dr Jasmina Kozarev
‘I’ve been working for 35 years, but I’ve rarely seen injuries like these’
Dr Jasmina Kozarev has been treating burns and scars for 35 years.
“Even so, I have rarely seen such extensive injuries and scars as those of the girls from Kočani. The silver lining is their youth and capacity for regeneration, which is enormous, as well as their will to live and belief that things will be alright,” says Dr Kozarev, whom Nadalina came to after visiting German and American specialists.
“I have the impression that we ‘clicked’ immediately, because I didn’t offer her an instant solution and didn’t say that everything would be fine, but that a shared struggle awaited us, through which we would reach a solution. The prognoses are very good. Scar maturation takes a year, and treatments should begin as early as possible, already in the first or second month after the injury. At that time you can greatly influence the reshaping of the scar itself, the vascular component, the amount of collagen and elastin in the scar, and reduce the scarring process to a minimum while achieving good tissue repair.”
Scars near joints can lead to shortening of the skin and tendons, so rehabilitation is extremely important there too, in order to fully preserve movement.
“Lasers perform multiple tissue-regeneration techniques. Intracellular structures (mitochondria) produce an extreme amount of oxygen after the first laser pass, and in that area you get a sudden growth of natural cells from your own stem cells that are still in the skin. The second step is closing newly formed blood vessels caused by chronic inflammation due to burns. This reduces vascular volume, that is, the number of blood vessels in the scar itself, which subsides, becomes less red, which is an indirect signal for extreme collagen production in that place to stop. The scar becomes smaller, thinner, sinks to the level of the skin and becomes elastic. The third laser phase is breaking down the existing collagen in such a hard scar,” Dr Kozarev explains the procedure, also noting that she will help colleagues in North Macedonia train in laser procedures once they acquire lasers, because several dozen children from Kočani need to have a normal life after everything that happened.
“For now, dermatology is my favourite. Watching how my doctor works, I want the same myself. When I first entered the clinic, she showed maternal instinct, gave me comfort and hope, and there is also the indispensable expertise,” says Nadalina as she turns the ring on her right hand.
“A gift from someone who means a lot to me and who is by my side,” says the girl, who is also following the trial for this unprecedented tragedy and is asking that “justice delivers what it must deliver”.
And in the end, so young and yet matured so early, she is aware of everything.
“Maybe there’s no chance that I’ll recover completely. But 50 per cent to heal the wounds, 50 per cent to accept everything – and it will be that I win 100 per cent!”
A lesson for all of us… Just to remember it when we scream over trivialities.