A mother’s despair after seeing her six-year-old son electrocuted when he accidentally touched an electrified railing caused by a faulty extension cord led to her also dying while hugging and trying to save her child. Diana Michelle Machado dos Santos Silva, a 35-year-old teacher, and Pietro Vinicius dos Santos Oliveira, six, died of electrocution in the house where they lived in the town of Timon, in the interior of the Brazilian state of Maranhão. .
The tragedy occurred when Diana used an extension cord to turn on the washing machine, as the appliance cord did not reach the nearest outlet. She did not realize that the extension cord was frayed and that outside the protective rubber insulation there was a small piece of electrical wire left exposed which, when it came into contact with the metal grill in the house, supplied current to it.
Vinicios, innocently playing near where his mother was washing clothes, leaned against the railing, electrified by an exposed wire, and immediately received a severe shock. Realizing the risk her son was exposed to and his desperation after receiving a strong electrical shock, Michelle, instead of turning off the power to the house, acted on the impulse that most people would act and ran towards the boy and grabbed him, trying to move him away from him. bars to save him.
As happens whenever someone touches or even gets close to multiple people who have received an electric shock, Michelle was also the victim of a very severe shock. Neither the people who tried to help at first, nor the firefighters who arrived later, could do anything for Michelle and Vinicius, who died instantly from electric shock in the house where they were so happy in life.