MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine Army second lieutenant dies after officers' party

The official report says the officer died after a “cardiac arrest caused by asphyxiation by food,” which would suggest that he choked on his vomit

Argentine Army Second Lieutenant Matías Ezequiel Chirino has died in the province of Corrientes following a cardiac decompensation after an initiation party known as “baptism,” it was reported.

The 22-year-old officer passed away in the early hours of Sunday in the Artillery Group No. 3 in the city of Paso de los Libres, Corrientes, after a dinner party that lasted until dawn, according to Army sources.

The celebration consisted of a barbecue that took place at the Officers' Casino, where the military academy traditionally closes the training period and informs the officers about their next assignments.

Officers reportedly exchanged one toast after another and some of them had to be escorted to their dormitories due to their state of alcoholic intoxication, Chirino among them.

Around 5 am Sunday, two of his comrades found him unconscious and with signs of hypothermia lying on a mattress on the floor. They immediately notified their superiors, tried to revive him, and rushed him in an Army ambulance to the nearby San José Hospital, where Chirino failed to respond to the physicians' resuscitation maneuvers.

The official report says that the second lieutenant died after a “cardiac arrest caused by asphyxiation by food,” which would suggest that he choked on his vomit. The results of the autopsy are yet to be disclosed.

After the event, the Argentine Army issued a statement dated June 20: “On Sunday 19, in the early hours of the morning and when he was resting in the Officers' Casino of the Military Unit, Second Lieutenant Matías Ezequiel Chirino suffered a decompensation condition for which he had to be transferred to the San José Hospital in Paso de los Libres, where he later died.”

The Army statement also highlighted that “the military authorities remain attentive to the judiciary requirements that may arise and offer support to the relatives of the second lieutenant.”

Chirino's body is to be shipped to his native Río Cuarto in the province of Córdoba for funeral services.