MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Three people died after a poodle fell 34 years ago and social media remembers it

It happened in the capital of Argentina. A 75-year-old woman died on the spot after Cachi fell from a balcony 13 stories above her.

On October 21, 34 years ago, a curious and unusual tragedy took the lives of three people who had nothing to do with each other on a corner in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Marta Espina, 75, was walking carelessly along Rivadavia Avenue when, shortly before reaching the corner, Cachi, a poodle, landed on her head after falling 13 stories from a balcony of a building, causing immediate death to both Espina and the dog.

However, death did not end only with the lives of these two beings. Buenos Aires' newspapers of the time narrated that, after falling to the void and killing -and committing suicide- on the septuagenarian, the remains of Cachi and the unfortunate were quickly surrounded by curious onlookers who peered at the scene.

Edith Solá, 46 years old, was probably one of the people attracted by the crowd of people who were curious or approached with the eagerness to help, she crossed the aforementioned avenue with haste, but could not reach the other corner: she was run over by a bus of line 55, producing the second human death in that place that day.

However, one more fatality was missing. Although he was not identified at the time, the chronicles report that a man suffered a heart attack after seeing the episode. He died shortly thereafter in an ambulance en route to a hospital.

The news was revived in the last hours both in social networks and in the media of the neighboring shore. Although the images of the event have probably been most preserved in the memory of the neighbors of the Caballito neighborhood, where it happened.

In any case, the unusual nature of the news made the front pages of the newspapers of the time and transcended borders and languages.

The event has even inspired fictional scenes, as in the movie Medianeras (2011) in which part of the situation is recreated, as stated by a Twitter user who calls himself Ave (@agustin_avenali).

While there have been other deaths related to household pets, none have matched the mortality of the slip of a poodle playing with his toys on a balcony on a spring afternoon.

This Friday, users in networks took the news with sympathy and related all kinds of memes with a tragic event that is remembered year after year.

 

Se cumplen 34 años de uno de los hechos más insólitos de las crónicas porteñas: el caniche que cayó del piso 13 y ocasionó tres muertes en Caballito. pic.twitter.com/0iKevi3crr

— Ave (@agustin_avenali) October 21, 2022

33 años de “la tragedia del caniche”, momento reconstrucción de la peli “Medianeras” de Gustavo Taretto pic.twitter.com/JsSw7hHUdN

— Matias Kirschenbaum (@matiask) October 22, 2021