A Mendoza Police officer and a municipal traffic agent died when they were hit by a drunk driver: he was driving with 2.68 grams of alcohol per liter of blood. They decreed 24 hours of provincial mourning.
Both victims were attacked on Friday shortly before midnight when they were organizing traffic, after a pileup of eight vehicles, on the Acceso Sur and Rodríguez Peña, in the municipality of Godoy Cruz.
According to witnesses, at the time of impact, the police officer and two municipal traffic agents were complying with the formality of the report and the expertise of the pile-up.
They were hit by a red Ford EcoSport, driven by Hugo Martín Rodríguez (44), who advanced at full speed along the shoulder to avoid the cars that had crashed on the asphalt.
As a result of the violent impact, the Godoy Cruz Municipal Transit agent, Santiago David Velázquez Guevara (23), died at the scene.
The main officer of the Mendoza police, Leonardo Exequiel Alarcón Quiroga (35), was rushed to the Central Hospital with a condition of “multiple fractures in the pelvis, hip and lower limb, and complete amputation of the right leg.”
Despite medical efforts, the police officer (a native of Tunuyán) died after 6 a.m. this Saturday.
The third of the injured suffered blows. He was assisted by the ambulance, taken to hospital and is out of danger.
Excess alcohol
The breathalyzer test carried out on Rodríguez resulted in 2.68 grams of alcohol per liter of blood, exceeding by a wide margin the maximum tolerated in the province, which is 0.5.
The driver was taken to the 7th police station in the provincial capital after several of the witnesses to the incident wanted to lynch him at the scene.
Rodríguez was detained, at the disposal of the prosecutor’s office on duty. According to the Attorney General’s Office, the driver had no criminal record.
The fact that the South Access lights were not working may have aggravated the visibility at the scene of the tragedy.
The residents of the area have been complaining for months because in that section of the South Access, the main entrance highway to the City of Mendoza that connects Guaymallén, Godoy Cruz, Luján de Cuyo and Maipú, there has been no public lighting for months.
Provincial Highways reported that public lighting cables were stolen in the area. And, after two months in the dark, on April 30 the first work began to repair the lighting of the Access between Sarmiento and Rodríguez Peña.
Provincial duel
The death of the Transit agents generated expressions of pain and anger on social networks. Among them, Governor Alfredo Cornejo (JxC) regretted the accident and questioned the driver.
On network
“The breathalyzer test of the person responsible showed 2.68 blood alcohol. We want these unconscious people to have the punishment they deserve. We are going to continue working hard for that, insisting on reforms in provincial and national justice,” said the governor.
In a subsequent post, Cornejo announced that the government of Mendoza decreed provincial mourning: “In memory of those who lost their lives in the line of duty, from the Government of Mendoza we decree provincial mourning for 24 hours.”
Note: Clarín.
