Teen dies on family holiday after freak accident on beach
A 17-year-old Argentine girl died on the last day of her family trip in the Dominican Republic after she stepped on a naked wire while walking barefoot at a beach, The Sun reported.
Melina Caputo was walking back to her hotel in Punta Cana with her brothers and cousins when she allegedly stepped on a bare wire as she walked up a flight of stairs to cross a bridge.
The teenager, who had been studying natural sciences at a school in the Argentine city of San Juan, was immediately electrocuted and died, despite efforts from paramedics to save her.
In the days before her death, Melina had purportedly posted a message on Instagram, saying, "I am saying goodbye," the Sun notes.
Preliminary investigations reveal that the 17-year-old died from cardio-respiratory failure, although an autopsy has yet to confirm those findings, according to the newspaper.
Globalia, the owner of the Be Live hotel where Melina's family stayed, has also supposedly denied that there were any live wires on the premises.
Following the teenager's passing, her family and friends took to social media to remember her.
"I saw you being born, I saw you growing up, I saw you fighting, I saw you crying, I saw you smiling, I saw you dreaming," Melina's brother Leandro wrote on Instagram.
"I know you were a good-intentioned person, as you were always fighting for the defenceless. I apologise, my love, for not being able to do more to have you by my side."
One friend mourned that he had lost someone close to him at such a young age.
"We both thought that if we were going to separate, it would be when we are old, but I never imagined that I was going to lose you so soon," Caputo's friend Nicolas Baistrocchi wrote.
Caputo's death comes as the Dominican Republic has been rocked with a series of mysterious deaths and controversial incidents involving other tourists.
Since last year, at least 10 Americans, for instance, have died under suspicious circumstances, many of which have involved the consumption of alcohol or the use of hotel amenities.
Earlier this year, one woman from Delaware claimed that she was brutally attacked by a hotel employee in Punta Cana as she was on her way to get a snack.
The country is still ‘safe’ for tourists
The resort where the alleged assault occurred temporarily shut down this month due to low occupancy.
Still, Dominican Republic officials insist their country is safe for tourists, dismissing any episode as merely coincidental.
"Sometimes in life, there can be a law of sequences," Minister of Tourism Francisco Javier Garcia said in an interview with Fox News in June.
"Sometimes, nothing may happen to you in a year. But in another week, three things might happen to you."
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