"
Nature does not forgive
."
This old saying could be applied to a tragic summer of 2024, in which, in a month and a half, one person drowned every day across the country.
In some cases, due to
unconsciousness and recklessness
.
In others, due to
fatalities
.
The truth is that each case involves a destroyed family, traces that will remain for life.
According to a survey carried out by
Clarín
, between December 17 and January 31 there were 41 deaths, to which are added 5 who are still considered missing.
Two of them are
Ramón Román (56)
and
Gabriel Raimann (38)
, who had gone fishing aboard a kayak in the Cariló resort.
This is the same boat with which the Tresarroyense hairdresser
Federico Cuevas Saihueque (25)
had gone into the sea in Claromecó , whose body was found 10 days later.
The other three wanted are two young people of 16 and 19 who were bathing in the Mendoza River last Sunday, in the middle of the flood, plus another of 15 who was with some friends at the Cipolletti dam, in the area of the floodgates, also in Mendoza.
With them, there are
46 victims in 46 days
(
13 in December and 33 in January
).
The scenarios are equally dangerous: the river, the sea and the different places where people seek to cool off in times of stifling heat, despite the danger represented by bathing in
prohibited areas and without lifeguards
.
Furthermore, they underestimate the fact that they do not know how to swim and do not wear life jackets when they get on boats.
Video
Federico Saihueque (25) disappeared on Sunday.
A security camera recorded the moment in which he rented the canoe and went out into the waters
Of the total cases, 11 were in the province of Buenos Aires.
They are followed by Córdoba (7), Mendoza (7), Neuquén (5), Chubut and Santa Fe (4), Misiones (3), Río Negro, Salta, Corrientes, San Juan and Entre Ríos (1).
As for the environments,
21 were in rivers, 7 in the sea
, 5 in swimming pools (children of 10, 11, 12, 14 and 15 years old), 4 in streams, 4 in dams, 2 in lakes, 2 in an irrigation canal and 1 in a home pool.
Juan Pablo Aravena Córdoba (15) drowned in the Limay River, in the Neuquén city of Plottier, on January 18, 2024.
"In just one week in January, there were 80 rescues in the Atuel River," the operational director of Spas of the Municipality of Neuquén, Gabriel Rambado,
told
Clarín .
This includes those who use precarious boats for sailing or fishing.
Although he mentions that the majority of bathers "are understanding that they do not have to go into authorized areas", there are some who do not respect the recommendations and are the ones who complicate the work of the authorities.
Nicolás Ciro Cottier Aguirre (20) drowned in the Mendoza River, in the town of Cacheuta, in Luján de Cuyo, when he was rafting and his rubber capsized.
Alcohol consumption
,
especially by young people, has also influenced some tragedies.
This has been seen in rivers in Córdoba, where they take risks such as
jumping off 20-meter jumps
, including in the famous Nido del Águila spa, next to the Mina Clavero River, in the Traslasierra Valley, province of Córdoba.
José Romano (33)
, municipal lifeguard in this natural paradise, told
Clarín
that "sometimes people come very fast, very euphoric, and they don't respect anything."
Milton Julián Vallego (15) drowned in the San Javier River, near the Santa Fe city of Romang, while sharing a day of fishing with two friends.
Here, on December 20, a 35-year-old tourist from Avellaneda died.
He was with his partner, he threw himself into a watercourse characterized by the formation of deep pools and did not resurface.
"It was in the main pot, he swam in, it is 60 meters long and there is a natural pool 12 meters deep. They had not drunk alcohol, but the victim
was not in good physical condition
. It happened almost an hour before the shift started of the lifeguards," Romano said.
Giovani Ezequiel Stuart Kraieski (18), a native of Aristóbulo del Valle, Misiones, drowned in the Paraná River, at the Puerto Leoni Fishing Club.
In rivers, one of the main concerns occurs after the rains, when their flows increase and, with it, the risk.
Tourists bathe anyway, even if it is not an auspicious day.
Especially those who arrive for a few days and want to take advantage no matter what, even if the weather is not suitable.
In these places, one of the greatest dangers is when they jump from several meters high into areas they do not know and
hit their heads against the stones
under the water.
Mechanic Carlos Andrés Carosini (42), from Posadas, drowned in the Paraná River, near Ituzaingó, Corrientes.
Eduardo Mansilla (37)
, head of the Lifeguard of Playa Unión, province of Chubut, told this newspaper that on days of extreme heat they usually receive between 50 and 70 thousand people in the enabled spas.
"Here you have the peculiarity that you pass the surf and do not make foot, it is open sea, the tide goes out but it is much more dangerous, so short rescues are usually done," he said.
José Victorino Fonseca (58), an evangelical pastor in Rincón de los Sauces, Neuquén, drowned while fishing in the Limay River.
His body appeared 17 days later near a water intake in Picún Leufú.
Mansilla, with 21 years of profession, indicated that the task of prevention and warning
young people
of danger , who are the most "unconscious" when it comes to entering the sea, is key.
Regarding the total number of victims, 12 were minors.
The tragedy of the Wagner brothers
On Sunday, December 17, the brothers
Ramón José Daniel (26) and Silvio Catriel Wagner (19)
, who had arrived in Córdoba from the rural area of Bovril (Entre Ríos), for work reasons, drowned in the
Posta del Remanso
spa. , in Nono, in the Traslasierra Valley.
The place is located on the bed of the Chico River, in the San Alberto department, about 150 kilometers west of Córdoba.
The transfer of the bodies of the Wagner brothers.
"
I don't want them to leave, I don't want to let them go, they are my blood, part of me, they don't know the helplessness, desperation, anguish that not being able to help them, not being able to have them here gives me. I love them. We are going to find each other and continue "the party
," wrote Juan Wagner, brother of the victims, on social networks.
Give your life for a son who was looking for a ball
On Saturday, December 23,
Javier Francisco Mora Aravena (52)
, Chilean, cooled off on Jordan Island, on the banks of the
Negro River
, in Neuquén.
Javier Francisco Mora Aravena (52), Chilean, drowned on Jordan Island, on the banks of the Negro River, in Neuquén.
His son jumped into the water to look for a ball, but began to drown.
Then, the man jumped in to save the boy.
He made it, but he could no longer get out of the river.
Mora Aravena was missing for five days until local authorities finally found his body.
The policewoman who rescued her children
In the middle of the Christmas celebration, on Monday, December 25, police officer
Judith Yamile Aillapan (35)
jumped into the
Río Azul
, north of Lago Puelo, in Chubut, to rescue her children.
The woman managed to save them, but she was pulled out of the water with serious symptoms of asphyxiation and was admitted to the hospital dead.
The farewell of the Río Negro Police to Corporal 1st Judith Yamile Aillapan (35), who drowned in Lake Puelo, in Chubut.
According to the director of Civil Defense of Lago Puelo, Julián Cayún, it occurred about 200 meters from the confluence of the Blanco and Azul rivers, where "great turbulence and significant flow are generated."
A flip into the water, the absurd end of a man from Zarate
Claudio Alejandro Migueles (34)
, from Zárate, province of Buenos Aires, had arrived at the
Los Elefantes
spa in Cordoba , on the way to Villa Cura Brochero, with his wife and daughters aged 17, 9 and 6.
It was 1:40 p.m. on Friday, December 29, when tragedy struck: the man dove into the Los Sauces River to rescue one of his daughters' flip flops, but drowned.
Claudio Alejandro Migueles (34), from Zárate, drowned in the Los Elefantes spa in Cordoba, on the way to Villa Cura Brochero.
"I thank you for your interest, but I prefer not to talk about the trauma that we are still going through," his wife
told
Clarín .
The couple from Punta Alta who died in Pehuén Co
On Saturday, December 30,
Claudia Carina Fernández (47) and Ariel Néstor Manini (42)
had gone to spend the day at the Pehuén Co beach, 68 kilometers from Punta Alta, with their two children, Mailén (18) and Agustín ( 9).
The sea was dangerous and the man saved his two children and his sister-in-law, but he drowned along with his wife.
Claudia Carina Fernández (47) and Ariel Néstor Manini (42) drowned on the beach of Pehuén Co.
Fernández was a hairdresser.
Her husband, a Navy employee.
The woman already had two children from a previous marriage.
The child drowned in a pool in Rosario
On Tuesday, January 2,
a 10-year-old boy
suffered an unfortunate accident in the
La Dulce
pool , which the Rosario Jockey Club has in a country house located in the Fisherton neighborhood.
The statement from the Jockey Club of Rosario after the death of a 10-year-old boy in a country pool.
According to what they believe, Facundo's foot got caught in a pool filter and when the lifeguards saw him, it was already too late.
The victim, who spent eight minutes underwater, died two days later in the Children's Sanatorium.
The fatal rescue of a dog in the Chubut River
On Thursday, January 4,
a 13-year-old boy
drowned while bathing with his sister and another teenager in the
Chubut River
, around noon, in the San Ramón neighborhood, in the sector parallel to Gobernador Tello Street, at the height of the Rawson Non-Commissioned Officers Casino (Chubut).
The Chubut River area where a 13-year-old boy drowned.
His body was found five days later, about 200 meters away.
According to witnesses, they lived on the coast.
The dog escaped and the teenager went looking for it.
His father managed to get the little ones out, but he got caught on a branch and drowned.
The mystery of kayaking on the high seas
On Sunday, January 14,
Ramón Román (56) and Gabriel Raimann (38) , from Pinamar and Misiones, respectively, disappeared after entering the sea in the
Cariló
resort
, aboard a kayak, to go fishing.
Gabriel Raimann and Ramón Román disappeared in Pinamar when they went into the sea to fish.
Eight days later, the Argentine Naval Prefecture (PNA) informed their families that it no longer expected to find the two friends alive.
They found the kayak of the two missing fishermen in Pinamar.
The only firm clue was kayaking.
They located it floating more than 15 nautical miles from the coastline of Villa Gesell, the equivalent of about 35 kilometers, without the engine that had been installed.
Falling from the jet ski, without a life jacket
On Sunday, January 21,
Jorge Andrés Peñaloza (47)
, from Justiniano Posse (Córdoba), where he had a radiator store, disappeared after falling from a jet ski in the Río Tercero Reservoir, between
Villa del Dique and Villa Rumipal
, in the Calamuchita department.
Jorge Andrés Peñaloza (47), from Justiniano Posse (Córdoba), drowned in the Río Tercero Reservoir, between Villa del Dique and Villa Rumipal.
"Ñape" was without a life jacket and did not know how to swim.
It was after 2 p.m. The depth in the place is 20 meters.
The body was found four days later.
"
Ñape, Peluca, Loco, we could call you a thousand ways... You enjoyed life and free time like no one else, your crazy things, your adventures
," one of his friends said goodbye to him on Facebook.
A family baptism and a joke that was not such
On Tuesday, January 23,
Hugo Llanos (45)
, a Bolivian, drowned in the
Atuel River
, located in the Mendoza department of San Rafael.
It was around 6:00 p.m., near the town of Las Malvinas.
Llanos was participating in a family baptism and entered the bed of the Atuel River.
The man began to call for help, but those close to him thought it was a joke and suddenly he disappeared from the surface.
Alejandra Fredes Di Franco (41), a preceptor at a school in Plottier and a kindergarten teacher, drowned when she saved her six-year-old son in an irrigation canal in the town of China Muerta, in Neuquén.
The hairdresser Federico Cuevas Saihueque (25), from Tres Arroyos, disappeared after entering the sea with a rented kayak, in Claromecó.
Alex Astor Grutzmacher (22) drowned in a stream located in the vicinity of the Tambor de Tacuarí waterfall, in San Vicente, Misiones.
Alejandro González (31) drowned in the Villaguay stream, in an area known as "La Bomba" of the municipal spa, in the center of Entre Ríos.
Nelson Mario Gadea (41), a fishing worker from Punta Alta, drowned in Monte Hermoso.
EMJ