His name was Julio Camacho Díaz and he was 72 years old when his body was found lifeless inside a house in the exclusion zone by the Tajogaite volcano. Now it is known that the cause of his death was the inhalation of toxic gases, thus officially becoming the first fatality of the eruption.
This retiree had worked in construction, and when citizen collaboration was most needed to carry out cleaning tasks in the areas covered by ash, he did not hesitate to help his neighbors, enrolling in voluntary work groups.
Julio entered the exclusion zone along with the usual convoy of workers and volunteers who came daily to clean the roofs, thus preventing the collapse of the houses due to the weight of the volcanic ash. These crews were formed during the period of active eruption between owners and volunteers who came to clean certain areas.
They were working in Corazoncillo, in the Las Manchas neighborhood, when he said goodbye to his colleagues, stating that he was going to leave the exclusion zone. This was confirmed by the rest of the people who accompanied him. This place, barely two kilometers from the eruption, was miraculously spared from the lava flows, but the ash heaps rose to 20 meters.
But Julio did not leave. He decided to continue cleaning work in another house. In this case, that of his sister who died from him. But he did it alone, and that was precisely his mistake.
After several versions, which even went so far as to point out that the deceased had suffered a fall from a roof, it is now known that it was really the noxious gases that caused his death. The fact of being alone within the exclusion zone when the poisoning occurred was what prevented him from receiving help.
Julio had no children and his only two sisters had died years ago, so it was a niece who raised the alarm on November 12, 2021.
When his gang returned to El Paso, his nieces missed Julio, beginning a search that ended the next day with the appearance of the body at the family home in the Las Manchas neighborhood.
Now, the judicial authority has archived the criminal investigation opened to investigate this death after certifying that the death It happened “accidentally” poisoning by carbon monoxide and hydrogen sulfide, that is, by breathing the toxic fumes from the La Palma volcano.
In recent days, the Court of First Instance and Instruction number 1 of Los Llanos de Aridane issued the order agreeing to the provisional dismissal and the filing of the preliminary proceedings opened as a result of the discovery on November 13, 2021 of the body of this 72-year-old man. years in the garage of his house in Las Manchas, one of the exclusion zones established due to the volcanic eruption on La Palma.
The investigation began the day before, November 12, when the family of the deceased today reported his disappearance, explaining that he had not returned home after going to the house as part of the convoy that had entered the exclusion zone that day to roof cleaning.
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The forensic report derived from the autopsy of the corpse showed that death had occurred due to “carbon monoxide and hydrogen sulfide poisoning”, dating the death between 2:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. on November 12, 2021 and qualifying the etiology as “accidental”.
It should be noted that the judicial resolution allows us to conclusively affirm that the eruption of the Tajogaite volcano, which took place between September 19 and December 13, 2021, caused a fatality and thus discover one of the big questions that still remained to be resolved from the entire volcanic process. Until now, that information made public by the court about the result of the autopsy had not been released after more than 13 months since death.