The man who appeared floating on Tuesday morning in Lanús died of electrocution.
This was determined by the preliminary result of the autopsy, according to what judicial sources told
Clarín
.
Investigators were also able to determine the identity of the body, but said they will not release his name until his family is notified.
The body was in the water for at least an hour, according to the complaint of the neighbors who filmed the situation.
His death was confirmed first by the Civil Defense of the province of Buenos Aires and then by the municipality.
The body appeared in the middle of the flood on La Habana and Coronel Luna streets, in
Valentín Alsina.
Five blocks from the Alsina bridge.
A woman named Lelianny filmed it from the window of her house and uploaded the images to networks so that some authority could send help.
Neighbors recorded it on video and the images quickly went viral.
They also reported that the authorities took a while to verify the death.
"Some neighbors took his pulse, they all came out, what's more, they wanted to protect him because there was a line of buses that wanted to pass and they didn't know there was a body and they could step on it," the woman who recorded the lifeless body explained to TN.
As she explained, she noticed that there was a body floating at seven in the morning and only after 11:30 did they arrive to rescue him with a life preserver.
"We realized at 7, we don't know if it was longer, it was more than four hours," she said.
Lelianny said that he uploaded the images to the networks so that it could be made public and they would come to help him.
"We called Civil Defense and they didn't answer us and then they said they couldn't come," he said.
There is a dead man lying on the street of my house in Valentín Alsina, no one comes to see, it is urgent, it looks like a person who was going to work on a normal day @eltreceprensa @CronicaTV @todonoticias #Lluvia pic.twitter.com/3AKOKg3dRC
— Lelianny Sthormes (@cattleyapurpura) March 12, 2024
Earlier, another neighbor had given his testimony.
“No one recognizes it.
Two hours ago we called the police and the firefighters and no one came,” reported Cristian, a neighbor who could see the body still floating from his window.
In a telephone conversation with TN, the neighbor explained that after reporting the appearance of the floating body, "no one appeared."
"We are waiting for someone to come and take charge. You can get closer because the traffic is going. You can get around," he confirmed.
"
A police car or firefighters can come. We don't know who he is or how his family may be
," added the resident of the South zone.
According to sources from the investigation to Clarín, the autopsy determined that the man's cause of death was electrocution.
"There is a dead man lying on the street of my house in Valentín Alsina, no one comes to see. It is urgent, he looks like a person who was going to work on a normal day," a neighbor posted around 8:30 in the morning and shared a video in which the corpse was seen, dressed in black, floating in the middle of the street.
I want to communicate with deep pain that a resident of Lanús has died due to the storm.
We hug his family and all his loved ones.
— Julián Álvarez (@aJulianAlvarez) March 12, 2024
At the same time, the same user said that at 9:39 Citizen Security arrived to confirm the death and that around 10 in the morning the body was still in the middle of the public road, still flooded.
"I want to communicate with deep pain that a resident of Lanús has died due to the storm. We hug his family and all his loved ones," Mayor Julián Álvarez posted around noon.
The Valentín Alsina firefighters had to approach the scene, hours later, with a life preserver to be able to remove the body from the water that was still flooding the streets.
They transferred the body to the Valentín Alsina 3rd police station, and once there, prosecutor María Silvia Bussano, from the Functional Unit of Judicial Instruction (UFIJ) 7 of Lanús, intervened.
A 14-year-old teenager suffered an electrocution in Valentín Alsina
A
14-year-old boy received an electric shock
in Valentín Alsina and was hospitalized in serious condition, after touching a light pole in the midst of the floods that affected that and other areas of the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area (AMBA), as a result of the intense rains that fell on Tuesday.
Video
He was walking in flip-flops along a flooded street and when trying to get onto the sidewalk he was shocked, apparently, after touching a light pole.
The episode happened in the vicinity of Haiti and Membrillar streets, in Lanús.
In the images that emerged through social networks, the minor was initially seen descending into the street, which was full of water.
Then, when he wants to get back on the sidewalk, he touches a light pole and receives the shock.
A neighbor of the place, named Romina, told
TN
that the minor was assisted by a man who performed
CPR
on him and that then a woman went to his home to ask for help.
“We did CPR with a neighbor for 15 minutes until the ambulance, the Fire Department and the Police arrived.
The person in the ambulance also performed CPR on him and then they loaded him into the ambulance and took him away,” he said.
In addition, he specified that the minor “reacted again but completely lost consciousness.”
“It cost us a lot.
He would come back, he would leave, until the ambulance arrived and they also did CPR on him, and they took him away unconscious,” he insisted.
"It was a very distressing situation. I am devastated and so is the other boy who performed CPR. I have children and so does he, and the only thing I thought about was that the baby would come back to life," the neighbor added.
MG