Córdoba, shocked. It was yesterday when it was known that the body found between two cars of a train in Santa Justa belonged to the young Álvaro Prieto, the boy who had disappeared since October 12 at the Seville train station when he was planning to take a train back to his home. The worst omens came true, and the tragic outcome has hit the young man’s family, friends and colleagues hard, who are barely trying to recover from the fatal news.
It was last night when the Nuevo Arcangel, the tempo of Córdoba C.F. where Álvaro played in the youth team, was filled with silence. Hundreds of fans and acquaintances wanted to pay a heartfelt tribute to the 18-year-old young man who died last Thursday, a victim of an electric shock, according to the preliminary autopsy report, when he climbed onto the roof of a stopped train car and was out of bounds. service for two months, parked just 2 kilometers from Santa Justa. At that moment, he grazed the arm that connected the convoy to the catenary with his abdomen and died from electrocution. The electric shock had been 3,500 volts. Álvaro’s body, who had burns on his hands and was hairless, fell between two train cars and was found by a journalist four days after his disappearance and an intense search that ended with the worst of endings. .
His hometown is in mourning today and the flags are flying at half-mast by decree of the city council. At the University of Córdoba, where the boy was studying Mechanical Engineering and whose rector decreed three days of mourning, a rally was held today at 11:00 a.m. and a minute of silence was broken with the applause of the hundreds of students gathered there. .
The pain over the death of the young man continues to beat in a city devastated by the sad event and by the questions that have not yet been answered: how could it have taken four days to find the body after the activation of the search device? What happened so that the boy decided to skip the security measures and enter the train tracks? How did you access this convoy?
Álvaro had traveled to Seville the Wednesday before October 12 to enjoy a night out with his friends. On Thursday, at 07:30, he had to catch a train back home. He was heading to the station when he wrote a message to his parents letting them know that he was going to catch the train, but he was late and missed it. With no battery in his cell phone and no cash, he tried to sneak onto an AVE bound for Barcelona that was stopping in Córdoba. Security guards intercepted him and prevented him from entering. Apparently, the boy tried again at another time, also on the railway tracks, and was reprimanded again.
According to the Government delegate in Andalusia, Pedro Fernández, in Santa Justa the young man was offered the possibility of charging his cell phone with another charger, “but he did not want to accept the help,” he stated, “we do not know the reason or the motive.” why the boy acted like that. The truth is that at 9:30 a.m. the last images of Álvaro alive leaving the station and heading to Kansas City Avenue were recorded. A witness, the mother of a friend of the young man, suggests that she crossed paths with him on this public road around 10:30. Shortly after, the young man would jump onto the tracks again, but this time almost two kilometers from the station entrance. Under the Carmona Highway bridge there was a regional car parked, which had not moved since last August 24 due to some breakdown, and it got on.
The first hypotheses suggest that, in his desire to return to Córdoba, Álvaro would have hidden there to evade surveillance until he could get on another train. But he climbed onto the roof of the car, where a shock caused his death that same Thursday morning. The camera at a nearby gas station captured the moment in which the young man jumped into the car, grabbed the catenary and died.
It was a complaint from his parents that activated shortly before 10:00 a.m. on October 12, a search device led by the National Police and in which members of the local force, emergencies and members of the Military Emergency Unit have also participated. For four days, different outings and searches have been carried out on the roads and in the vicinity of Santa Justa. Sewers and difficult access points were inspected, as well as drones were used in the area to try to find any trace of the missing person, but all attempts were unsuccessful. The investigators suspected that the boy had not left the station premises, perhaps for this reason they discouraged Álvaro’s colleagues from joining the search. As the days passed, the chances of finding the young man alive decreased, although at first the possibility that he had been run over was considered.
It was on Sunday night when the UME incorporated its dogs specialized in finding people into the device, but their field of action was barely 200 meters from where the body was finally found. When on Monday the Police announced that they were going to launch a new raid, a television reporter on a live connection recorded one of the trains moving towards the station and, unfortunately, between two cars was Álvaro’s lifeless body.
From the moment the boy’s identity was confirmed, the family has remained hermetic from the press, as has Córdoba C.F., which until then had been very active asking for Álvaro’s return home. The Club made the decision to suspend its events yesterday and today, although the technical team and the first team observed a minute of silence this morning. It should be noted that the young man’s colleagues are in shock and trying to digest what has happened.
For its part, there is information that suggests that the family is studying the possibility of denouncing both Renfe and the researchers for a job that was finally solved, by chance, by some journalists. They are also considering going against RTVE, which broadcast the images of the body live.
Álvaro’s family has had the support of his closest environment, but also of all those institutions and entities of which the young man was a part, from his schoolmates, the football club and other friends. They have also been able to take refuge in his faith to endure this difficult ordeal during the four days of uncertainty where they were still waiting for the boy to appear safe and sound. In fact, the young man’s mother participated in a radio program considering two possibilities in this regard: Álvaro could have gotten in a car back to Córdoba and someone could have hurt him or, on the other hand, he could have been run over. But hope was broken yesterday morning.
The terrible moments that the family goes through with the announcement of this loss are unimaginable. The ecclesiastical community has not been able to remain unaware of this suffering and the Cathedral Chapter of Córdoba has announced that it will offer this Tuesday, in the Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba, the chapter mass of this same day, praying “for his eternal rest” of Álvaro, every time he showed his condolences and his “deepest condolences to the family and loved ones of young Álvaro Prieto.”
