“Dad doesn’t wake up”: the drama experienced by the family of one of the victims who used adulterated cocaine in Argentina

Martín Gómez*, 41, lives just five and a half blocks from Puerta 8, the shanty town -or poor neighborhood- in the west of the Greater Buenos Aires where the adulterated cocaine that has caused at least 23 deaths and more than 80 hospitalizations is believed to have been sold.

On Wednesday his father, Alfonso, found him lying in bed, unconscious, and took him to the hospital, where they saved his life.

LOOK: What is known about the case of adulterated cocaine in Argentina that left 20 dead and dozens hospitalized

In conversation with BBC Mundo, the man said that now his son is “well” and is back at home.

“But when I saw him yesterday he was lying on a bed, dead. I shook him, slapped him and he didn’t react, he was dead,” he recalls.

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The researchers believe that the alkaloid could have been mixed with some type of poison or “fractionated” with some other substance.

The Minister of Security of the province of Buenos Aires, Sergio Berni, called for any consumer who has bought cocaine in the last 24 hours to get rid of it.

At the entrance of the four hospitals where the victims were initially transferred, families were seen crying and hugging each other outside, while they waited for information about their relatives.

As provincial government advisers told the BBC, it is believed that “the number of victims could be higher”.

A nightmare

The nightmare for Martín’s family began on Wednesday morning, when Santiago, the man’s little son, only 4 years old, desperately called his mother to tell her that his father would not get out of bed.

“Dad won’t wake up,” she told him.

“She got up at 4:30 in the morning to go to work and Santiago was left in charge of his father, who woke him up and prepared breakfast for him,” said the grandfather.

But on Wednesday, that did not happen.

“Santiago cried and said: ‘I slapped dad and he didn’t wake up,'” says Alfonso. “My soul ached, my poor little grandson. Do you know what it’s like to go through that?”

The mother asked him to call his older brother, who was also unable to make his father react.

“He told his mom that he was sick, that drool was coming out of his mouth and he wouldn’t wake up.”

She called Alfonso, who lives nearby.

“I grabbed the bike and ran away,” he recalls.

Uncertainty

When she saw her son lying on the bed, she thought he was dead.

“I was already traveling to heaven,” he says.

“My daughter came, we sat him down, we gave him a few smacks and he woke up a bit. I had to take him to the hospital. He’s tall, he’s almost 2 meters tall, do you know how much that dead body weighs?”

“With the help of my daughter and a friend, we put him in her car and took him to the Bocalandro hospital. There they did a lavage and I don’t know how much. They put serum on him, they did everything and thank God he got away.”

“Thank God I was able to save my son”he says relieved.

the day of fear

Alfonso assures that his son “smoked a little joint from time to time”, but it was not common for him to consume cocaine.

“On Wednesday he arrived at 3 in the morning from work and met with some friends at Gate 8. With them he took the cocaine that was poisoned.”

“Of the others who had been using all day, a few died,” he says.

His son, on the other hand, was discharged at midnight, after seven hours of hospitalization.

“Luckily he drank little,” says the father.

Two friends of his son from Puerta 8 who had also been discharged died a few hours later, he says. “One was decompensated upon arrival and another began to smoke a joint and also became decompensated and died.”

Alfonso does not believe that the operations against drug trafficking that originated due to the appearance of adulterated cocaine and the high number of victims will change anything.

“They grab parsley,” he says, assuring that the police station in his neighborhood “arranges with the drug traffickers.”

He assures that now he will be more aware of his son, since he fears that he may fall back into drugs: “I want to see how he is doing and what he is up to. I have to keep a good eye on him,” he says.

“He’s a good person, but I don’t like that he takes drugs.”

*The names of the protagonists have been changed at their request, to protect their privacy and security.

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Source: Elcomercio

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