The model of fairground attraction that this morning has suffered an accident in San Jose de la Rinconada , with the result of 28 injuries -one of them serious-, caused on September 19, 2014 the death of a minor under 12 years of age in the district of Maribanez (Los Palacios and Villafranca).
The young Alba, who had been chosen that year as Lady of the Festivals of the town, suffered an electric shock just when the Superpot, popularly known as The pot, had stopped spinning and was about to leave it. ” When she touched the first step she stayed glued to the groundand, when convulsing, she grabbed a friend, falling at her feet, without a pulse, dead”, recounted a witness to the events.
The terrible accident also caused the transfer to the Valme Hospital of two other minors , a 12-year-old boy years later, discharged a few hours later, after verifying that the health personnel had suffered “a mild electric shock” , and a girl who, apparently, did not show signs of electrocution, but had an obvious anxiety attack .
” All the papers were in rule . The Civil Guard has verified it”, insisted then the owners of other attractions installed in the fair. A fact in which theMayor of Los Palacios, Juan Manuel Valle , on the day of the young woman’s burial, attributing the electrical discharge to a fault in a differential or in the ground connection .
Four years later, in June of last 2018, the prosecutor requested three years in prison for the owner of the attraction and two years for the mayor of Urbanism and the municipal operator who reviewed it.
The Prosecutor’s Office then recalled that the day before the fatal accident, the Civil Guard informed Civil Protection of an action “with some boys who reported having suffered electric shocks” in the aforementioned attraction, which the head of Civil Protection communicated “personally” by the morning to the Town Planning councilor and the Local Police.
For his part, the mayor of Urban Planning ordered the person in charge of the municipal electricians to go and review the attraction and take “the corresponding measures , although without at any time agreeing to close the attraction.”
For the Prosecutor’s Office, the municipal operator carried out “a mere visual inspection” in which he observed that “there was a piece of cable on the ground in contact with a puddle of water” due to the rains of the previous night and ordered the owner of La Olla put the cable on high “without taking any other verification measure” .
However, after the death of the young woman, it was found that the attraction “suffered from a defect in the electrical installation, failing to comply with the basic safety and regulatory requirements” because the “earth spike was not duly inserted into the ground, not guaranteeing correct evacuation in the event of an electrical potential fault”, its length was “insufficient to achieve the resistance levels electricity required” and was not screwed to fix it but “twisted”.
Finally, the Prosecutor’s Office considered that the facts constituted a crime of reckless homicide and, in addition to the prison sentences, requested through the attraction insurance, and subsidiarily by the City Council of Los Palacios, a compensation of 166,200 eurosto the parents and brother of the deceased minor; 3,550 euros to the friend she relied on and 32 euros to each of the other three minors who suffered injuries from shocks.
