Simon Hunter
MORE DETAILS emerged this week of the circumstances leading up to the tragic death of Alvaro Prieto, an 18-year-old student and football player whose body was found between two train carriages at Seville’s Santa Justa train station on Monday.
Speaking on Spain’s Cuatro television channel, journalist Nacho Abad shared details of a conversation between an employee at the train station and the youngster shortly before he died on the roof of a train after accidently touching a live wire. The employee is thought to be the last person to have seen Prieto alive.
Abad cited the statement that the station worker gave to the police about his interactions with Prieto on the morning of October 12, when he was trying to catch a train back to his home in Cordoba after a night out partying but was having problems given that his ticket was on his cellphone, which had run out of batteries.
“On October 12 at around eight o’clock in the morning, a passenger came to the office of the High Speed Service Center because he could not find the ticket to take his train,” the statement reads. “First of all, he provided us with an email, which located another Córdoba-Málaga ticket, but as it was not the ticket he was looking for, since its origin was Sevilla Santa Justa and Córdoba as the destination, we asked him if he was sure that he had bought it via [state rail operator] Renfe, to which he confirmed that he had.”
The employee then explained that he offered Prieto a phone charger and even showed him where he could plug it in
“The passenger stated that he thought that it wasn’t working, and that we should seek other ways to be able to help him,” the statement continues.
“Alvaro Prieto provided us with another email in the name of Rafael Prieto, and this time we were able to find a return ticket,” the employee told the police. “We let him know that the train had already left.”
Prieto was then informed that the next train would leave at 9.30am, at which point he took his wallet and went to the ticket office to buy another ticket, according to the statement.
The witness told the police that ‘the conversation was completely normal at all times’.
Prieto’s disappearance last Thursday prompted a widespread search by police, but it was in fact a television news crew who spotted his body between the carriages of a train that was being moved in the station when they were there covering the story.
CCTV footage from a nearby gas station caught Prieto on camera as he was on the roof of the train, presumably trying to sneak onto a carriage to get home. He is seen in the footage touching the live cable, and would have received a 3,000-volt electric shock that killed him instantly.
He had previously tried to sneak onto another train but was detected and ejected by security staff.
An autopsy carried out on his body earlier this week confirmed that he had died from an electric shock.
Read more:
- Autopsy confirms that Alvaro Prieto, whose body was discovered in Spain’s Seville on Monday, died from a 3,500-volt electric shock
- CCTV captures the moment Alvaro Prieto was killed
- Shocking moment suspected body of missing footballer Alvaro Prieto, 18, is seen trapped between carriages of moving train
