Ricardo Bottega
(60) had more than 30 years of experience in pump repair.
He lived in Florentino Ameghino, but carried out tasks in the small town of Blaquier.
Because of his work, on Friday at 6:30 p.m. he went down to a sewage well to make repairs.
He did not leave there alive again
, nor did the five people who came down to help him.
The Municipality of Ameghino indicated that the autopsies revealed
"mechanical asphyxiation due to bronchoaspiration"
as the cause of death , and this afternoon investigation sources detailed to
Clarín
that what caused it was the strong presence of
methane gas
coming from the sewage system.
As this diary was able to reconstruct, Bottega descended due to an initial arrangement that had to do with the guides that the existing pumps have in the well.
Once inside, he uncovered two mouths of the sewage system and at that moment
the methane gas that he inhaled
was released , which led to his death.
“The report from the ecological police is still awaited.
But the cause is quite clear.
The first is completely due to
inhalation of the gas
.
And the remaining five inhale, faint and die
from drowning in the liquid from the well
,” sources from the investigation explained in dialogue with
Clarín
.
Expert reports on the facilities of this sewage well in Blaquier have already begun, but for now it has not been possible to determine the
amount of methane gas
that was present at the time of the tragedy.
This is because the two mouths of the sewer system were kept open for a long period prior to the rescue of the bodies.
At the time of the expert report, the methane level was lower.
For this reason, they will carry out new tasks and tests this Monday, with specialized personnel.
When asked about the possibility that there may have been a maneuver error on Bottega's part – perhaps by going down and not doing some task prior to opening the lids – the sources maintain that it is very likely.
“This added to the performance of these tasks
without specific equipment
.
It also remains to determine if there was any additional damage that triggered everything," they said.
In addition to Bottega, Juan Ramon Sánchez (50) and his son Nicolás (28), Mateo Pelegrino (27), Carlos Rodolfo Renger (39) and Alejandro Centeno (35) died in the tragedy, neighbors and friends who tried to rescue Bottega and then to each one of them as they entered.
The danger of asphyxiation from methane gas
Carlos Damin, head of Toxicology at the Fernández Hospital, explains that
methane gas
is one of the gases that is produced naturally in gas production as
fossil energy
, and that the gas that is produced for home consumption is “a mixture of methane. and butane.”
"But this methane or butane gas has little to do with the one produced from sewage liquids by the
decomposition of organic compounds
, which is what is in
sewage waste
, that is a methane gas that is released from sewage liquids. and that can be concentrated in wells, for example, which is what happened in this case.
It has nothing to do with geographical location,” says Damin.
And he adds that in all the blind wells where there is a concentration of sewage liquids there is "release of gas, butane, propane, but there may also be other gases that are much more quickly fatal, such as hydrogen sulfide or hydrochloric acid, which could also be present." added or
have enhanced the effects of this poisoning
and have caused the death of the six people who died.”
Francisco Dadic, medical toxicologist and director of Toxicology of the Ibero-American Public Health Foundation, adds to this comment that what methane can produce is
hypoxic asphyxiation
, that is, a displacement of the oxygen column.
“Less oxygen reaches the lung, the gas interface cannot be provoked and this leads to the lung
collapsing at some point
, we have to see what concentration there was in that place, if it was very high there was nothing, no oxygen.
So, death can be caused very quickly,” he maintains.
Dadic comments that this gas has the particularity of having both natural and artificial sources: “The cow, when it releases gases, releases methane, which ends up being one of the causes of this alleged global warming that is happening everywhere.
But at the same time, it is also a gas that is caused by the emission of different hydrocarbons.
It is generated as a result of fermentation, we could say,
or from waste
.
In other words, you also see it in different waste pits that also cause the same putrefaction, the formation of this type of gas.”
MG