"We are a family that is broken" | Chronicle

"It was Friday. At 4:00 p.m. from Argentina, my brother-in-law called me to tell me the news. We are a broken family that what he wants most now is to know what happened and to be able to bring my niece's body to our country", He said Mauricio Flores, uncle of the 17-year-old girl from San Juan who died instantly from an electric shock while climbing the ladder to get out of the sea, from one of the most recognized tourist hotels on Bayahibe beach, about fifty kilometers from Punta Cana, in Dominican Republic.

Melina Caputo, as reported by his family, he had traveled to be part of his grandmother's plan to take five of his grandchildren on vacation. "Melina was climbing the metal ladder she has to leave the sea to a pier that is on the grounds of the hotel where they were stopping, which is the Be Live Collection Canoa de Bayahibe. There is a pier so you don't have to go out along the coast, full of corals with which you can get hurt. He was on the fourth step when he suffered the shock that electrocuted her. On the pier there is wiring to power lanterns that illuminate at night and a whole gastronomy stand with refrigerators and televisions that also receive electricity. We assume that some of all that wiring was malfunctioning and caused the download"denounced Flores.

"They told me that the hotel staff took Melina to a room to perform resuscitation maneuvers, but that the defibrillators took between half an hour and forty minutes to arrive."

From the customer service area of ​​the hotel neither confirmed nor denied that the incident occurred at its facilities. "Grandma traveled with three of my nephews and with two cousins ​​of them. My two nephews and their grandmother returned on the scheduled date, which was at dawn on Sunday. There were Melina's cousins, who are of legal age, and as soon as the news was known my brother-in-law traveled with his brother, to wait for the autopsy results and to be able to bring my niece's body as soon as possible"Flores explained.

According Horacio Lazzari Mathieu, head of the Consular Section of the Embassy of the Argentine Republic in the Dominican Republic, who expects the autopsy results to be on Tuesday, said: "The report will determine if more expertise is needed to determine what happened or if the family can already repatriate the body, which is what they want to do as urgently as possible. "

The grandmother of the young woman "is with a picture of hypertension product of what happened", They assured from the family. "My sister is not in a position to speak. My nephews, Melina's brothers, are shattered, and above all they think that thousands of tourists went up that metal ladder and will continue to climb. They told me that the hotel staff took Melina to a room to make resuscitation maneuvers, but it took the defibrillators between half an hour and forty minutes to arrive, " denounced Flores.