Roberto Emilio Meléndez Chávez made a living selling soup in various sectors of Santa Marta. That was his daily work for several years and the last one he would do.
The 67-year-old man was on his way to his workplace on a tricycle, where he also carried the pot of hot soup. Out of nowhere a vehicle appeared and hit him, causing ‘El Charol’, as he was affectionately called, to fall to the pavement and hit various parts of his body. But that was not all, the hot soup fell on his abdomen, causing third degree burns.
Meléndez was helped by passers-by and due to his complex health, they sent him to a clinic in Barranquilla, where he died.
“I was 15 years old selling soups. He was carrying the pot on a cargo tricycle and that day around 8 in the morning he was on the Vía Alterna when a car hit the tricycle head-on and that made the pot of soup, freshly made, fall on top of him,” said one family of the victim.
The body will be taken to his native Santa Marta for a Christian burial.