Octavio Almaguer Ricardo lost his life last Monday due to a pothole. The day before, the man, in his 50s, had an accident with his motorcycle in Holguín, on a road near his house, which local residents assure this newspaper is “deadly” due to the number of holes it has. .
“It was almost dark, late at night, he had left the house to leave some friends at the entrance to the road. He took the pothole, was thrown and the motorcycle fell on him,” he tells 14ymedio a person close to the victim who prefers anonymity.
As soon as he learned of the accident, which occurred in San Rafael Adentro, at kilometer 5 of the Mayarí highway, he approached the scene of the events, where an eyewitness told him that Almaguer “was coming down a small hill and took the pothole , and right there was the fall “. In his opinion, the speed of the bike plus the momentum of the descent caused him to speed up. “That’s when the bike’s steering suffered a slight movement and the crash resulted.”
“That pothole is the first on that road, it is terrible, that is the softest but all of it is full of potholes, the others seem like mortar holes,” says this source.
The victim, with a serious head trauma and multiple fractures in one leg, was transferred to the Holguín provincial hospital and underwent surgery, but nothing could be done to save his life.
“That pothole is the first on that road, it’s terrible, that’s the smoothest but all of that is full of potholes, the others look like mortar holes”
Octavio Almaguer leaves a wife, two children and his two elderly parents. The family was, in the words of this friend, “extremely sore.”
For his part, Ernesto Almaguer Díaz, the victim’s cousin, regretted what happened on his networks and published a photo of the pothole that caused the accident while blaming the poor state of the roads for the death of his relative.
“This pothole, about a hundred meters from the entrance to the Bird Slaughterhouse in San Rafael Adentro, Holguín, is responsible for the accident that took my cousin Octavio Almaguer Ricardo,” he denounced. “Like this one and even worse, Holguín and Cuba are full. What is the tax paid for the use of the roads in Cuba known as payment of sheet metal for? How many more lives will the poor condition of the roads in Cuba have to take? “.
In the first four months of this year, the National Road Safety Commission reported one death every 20 hours from traffic accidents in the country. On statements to the official gazette Granma, The Secretary General of that institution, Reynaldo Becerra Acosta, pointed out that from January to April 2021 there were 2,403 accidents that resulted in 1,804 injuries and 155 deaths.
They counted an average of one accident every hour and 12 minutes, one death every 20 hours and one injured every one hour and 36 minutes. Among the main causes, they do not mention the poor condition of the roads, but point to other causes, such as not attending to vehicle control, disrespect for the right of way, speeding and technical damage. Official data collected in Cuba for several years indicate that traffic accidents are the fifth leading cause of death.
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