After two days of searching, tactical divers finally found the truck driver dead who lost control of his vehicle and
fell from a bridge into
the Miní stream on National Route 168, in Santa Fe,
They had been looking for
Matías Costa,
32, since last Wednesday when police personnel discovered that his truck had crashed at kilometer 12 of that route, near the subfluvial tunnel that connects the city of Santa Fe with Paraná.
The driver was driving to the province of Misiones, on what a colleague defined as his first long trip by truck.
"After the arduous task,
between 0 and 0:30 it appeared alone
very close to where we had extracted the truck yesterday at kilometer 12 of national route 168," the General Director of Santa Fe Firefighters, Andrés Lastorta.
In this regard, he explained that after not finding it in the cabin of the truck when they extracted the vehicle from the water, "we had to change the search strategies," said the Santa Fe official.
"The tactical divers searched the place where the truck was and where the cargo was, just in case it was crushed under it," he said.
"We knew it was going to appear nearby because it is a place that
has no current
and the water is stagnant because the flood subsided," he added.
Matías lived in Unquillo, 40 kilometers from Córdoba capital.
At the time of the accident, he worked for a transportation company in that province and transported road machinery to the province of Misiones.
"It was one of the first trips I made with the cart," said Eduardo, the victim's companion in conversation with radio
Aire
.
The Santa Fe firefighters, members of the Argentine Naval Prefecture, the provincial police, the Provincial Emergency Service and the Provincial Highway Service participated in the search and rescue operation for the truck driver.
The last hours of the truck driver who was injured in Santa Fe
His colleague said that the trip lasted approximately eight hours.
Since they were both traveling the same route, they stayed
connected by text message
.
The last contact took place at 11:30 p.m. on Tuesday.
"He was arriving in Santa Fe
, I was in Posadas at 10 p.m., I was stopping to rest and he was going to do the same at the Paraná parador," added the companion who had shared the route with Matías for some time.
Eduardo stressed that his partner was
used to making short trips
and that this was his first long trip.
The driver confirmed that he found out about the accident the day after Matías' disappearance, after contacting his boss.
The accident took place at 2 in the morning, but was only discovered in the morning.
Initially, it was speculated that a vehicle had broken six columns of the bridge and had continued on its way to the sub-river tunnel.
However, it was confirmed that the vehicle never crossed that interprovincial crossing.
While National Highway personnel carried out a plan to reduce the lane and signal safety, the Santa Fe Police and the National Gendarmerie began to search for the vehicle, alerted by a diesel stain that was observed in the waters of the stream.
Thus, tactical firefighters from the General Fire Department were summoned, who located the submerged truck, which had no occupants in the cabin, and a structure that sank nearby and which was the trailer of the same vehicle.