Osvaldo Franco Ariel Benítez
was 19 years old.
He was from the Province of Buenos Aires and was in Río Negro for work reasons.
On Friday, on a day of oppressive heat that reached 35 degrees,
he jumped into the water to rescue his friend
from him, who had sought relief in an irrigation canal.
But the current carried him away.
Since then he was missing.
They found him this Saturday, lifeless.
Benítez was in Cipolletti together with a friend, Fernando Manuel Cabrera Martínez, of Paraguayan nationality and 18 years of age.
At 4 p.m. on Friday, when the temperature was 34.6 degrees, both of them jumped into the water in irrigation canal 30 bordering the neighborhood of that same name.
"This is a young man who was cooling off with another young man,
he jumped into the canal without knowing how to swim to save his friend's life
and unfortunately he could not get out," Miguel Manquilef, Fire Chief, told the newspaper
La Mañana
.
The area where they jumped into the water has a waterfall and a depth of 8 meters.
The improvised bathers
did not know the terrain
, in an area where there is a waterfall.
Martínez managed to escape from the portentous channel, which there has a depth of 8 meters.
But Benítez could not counteract the force of the water and was
swept away by the current
.
His partner managed to notify the neighbors, who tried some rescue maneuvers without success.
Throughout Friday afternoon, authorities searched the area to find the whereabouts of the missing young man.
They didn't manage to do it.
Neighbors improvised an operation to search for the young man who jumped into the water in a Cipolletti canal.
With the arrival of night, the official search work was suspended, but friends and neighbors
improvised - with ropes, harnesses and flashlights - maneuvers
to continue these efforts even in the dark.
The authorities resumed the maneuvers this Saturday, when finally at 10 in the morning they found Benítez's lifeless body.
Canal 30 is one of the watercourses intended for irrigation in the northwest area of Rio Negro.
According to the local Civil Defense,
it is prohibited to bathe in the canals
, which are not enabled for cooling and, furthermore, do not have lifeguards.
However, on hot afternoons like Friday, the neighbors disobey the prohibition and go into the canal.