Havana/Osmani Rosales Núñez, a worker at the Cárdenas Electric Company, died this Saturday from an electric shock while carrying out repair work in the Tenería area between Neptuno and Ceres, in the city of Cárdenas, in the province of Matanzas. The news was disclosed by the user Christian Arbolaez on his Facebook profile and also taken up by The Scissors.
According to the report, Osmani, who was just 39 years old and lived in Cristina and Portilla, was transferred still alive to the Moncada Polyclinic and was then taken to the hospital, “where the doctors tried to revive him without success.”
“I was a witness, I saw him fall and it was very painful,” said a user in the comments to post from Arbolaez. “I saw him when he arrived at the hospital. They did everything they could to revive him, but I really knew it was difficult, he was all burned,” another person added.
The publication was filled with praise for Rosales Núñez, who stands out for her human quality and closeness, but also with condemnations for the conditions in which the workers work. “Situations like this should be avoided. They work with few physical protection materials and also with too much risk. Look how the life of this boy who surely left a destroyed family ends,” remarked one user.
“Situations like this should be avoided. They work with few physical protection materials and also with too much risk”
Regarding the fact, neither the company nor the provincial media have published a single line until now.
The death of the worker occurs in the midst of an energy crisis that in Cárdenas has led to citizen protests for outages of more than 26 hours, while in Matanzas the blackouts have exceeded 67 consecutive hours without electricity, as reported by local journalist Yirmara Torres.
Similar accidents have been recorded in recent years in the country. In September of last year, the lineman Cleivi Pujada Castro He lost his life while carrying out repair work on a circuit at the Playa Baracoa substation, in Bauta, Artemisa province. The worker from the Electrical Union of Cuba (UNE) died after coming into contact with a high voltage line, according to the testimony of a colleague who disclosed what happened.
“A fatal accident happened in which my partner and brother Cleivi Pujada Castro lost his life. I feel surprised because he was always a very strict man with safety measures,” his partner Alden Daniel García wrote on Facebook. According to his story, Pujada Castro made contact with a 7,800 volt line, a discharge that caused his death.
Another lineman, Osmani Hernández Madroza, suffered severe burns while working on a breakdown in San Miguel del Padrón
Days before, another lineman, Osmani Hernandez Madrozasuffered severe burns while working at a breakdown in San Miguel del Padrón, when repairing a broken conductor with which he made contact, resulting in the amputation of both his arms due to the burns. According to a statement released then by the Unión Eléctrica (UNE), the 35-year-old worker was urgently transferred to the Miguel Enríquez hospital – known as La Benéfica –, where he was immediately treated.
In March 2024, Leonel Carroso Machina lineman for the Havana Electric Company, fell from a pole in the municipality of Boyeros and died. After the accident, the worker was taken to a hospital for surgery, but he did not survive the intervention.
That same year, in October, a fire in the patana Turkish ship Belgin Sultan, anchored in Havana Bay, left eight injured: three Cubans and five Turkish Karpowership employees. Days later, foreign workers Halil Karadeniz and Fuat Türkyilmaz died at the Hermanos Ameijeiras hospital from their injuries.
Each accident that comes to light intensifies criticism of the UNE for the risky conditions in which its employees work.
Each accident that comes to light intensifies criticism of the UNE for the risky conditions in which its employees work, with insufficient or non-existent protective equipment. In 2024, the company itself shared images of workers removing ashes inside the boiler of a thermoelectric plant without gloves, masks or glasses, which reinforced the perception that the high accident rate is not a coincidence.
Official statistics confirm the seriousness of the situation of insecurity in work environments in the country: during the first half of 2025, 15 deaths were recorded due to 436 work accidents, according to figures from the National Office of Statistics and Information (Onei).
Before, in 2024, 52 Cubans died in your workplace, that is, one per week. Although the total number of accidents decreased from 1,498 in 2023 to 934 in 2024, the rate of deaths per thousand injured shot up from 33.7 in 2023 to 53.3 in 2024, an increase of close to 60%.
