A Cuban, father of one of the young men who were serving Active Military Service and were sent to put out the fire at the Supertankers base in Matanzas, revealed a chilling message that his son communicated to him during the tragedy.
As he told the local newspaper Giron Ariel Aragón Vargas, father of the young man, now a student of Cybernetics at the University of Havana, the words spoken by his son still impact him.
“Dad, this is very hot, my arm hairs burn,” the son, Lázaro Javier, told him after being assigned to the scene of the incident where 17 people lost their lives, including recruits who were doing Active Military Service.
The man, when recalling the fateful event, said that his desperation led him to go to the place to try to help in the midst of the catastrophe.
Faced with the refusal of the authorities to be near the fire, he made his car available to the wounded to take them to the hospital.
“From that moment on, a thousand things went through my mind. I was absorbed when a phone call from my son Lázaro Javier brought me back to reality,” he recalled.
His concern increased as the danger grew, for “the tense and the danger of burning and exploding another tank was imminent, just as it would happen the next morning.”
From those days he also has the pain of having lost a friend of his son, Leo Alejandro Doval Perez del Pradowho died in the accident.
“They were sad, hectic days, full of pain for the loss of my friends, Leo Alejandro, whom I loved as my own son since I was a boy, and other valuable companions. What I did was what was due in those moments, nothing compared to those who offered their lives, ”he said.
On August 5, 2022, during the fire, professional firefighters, employees of a military company, pipe drivers and young recruits completing Active Military Service and they were sent to quell the sinister.
