The five who died were in a group of ten friends from Argentina on vacation in New York to celebrate their high school reunion, before they perished in the terror attack Wednesday.
A sixth member of the group, MartÃn Ludovico Marro, remains hospitalized in intensive care and is expected to survive, but has not yet learned the heartbreaking news that five of his close friends perished.
The dead Argentinians, who were among eight who died in the attack, have been identified as Ariel Erlij, Hernán Mendoza, Diego Angelini, Alejandro Pagnucco and Hernán Ferruchi. All were 47, except for Erlis, who was 48.
‘They came here like millions of other visitors to see the sights, and see the greatest city on earth,’ said federal prosecutor Joon H. Kim on Wednesday, while announcing terror charges against suspect Sayfullo Saipov, 29, who will face the death penalty in the case.
It is not clear how long the video was shot before the deadly truck attack, but it depicts the friends biking along the west side of Manhattan, heading south toward the Tribeca location where the terrorist struck the bike path shortly after 3pm.
‘They were riding two by two, heard a noise, and saw in seconds that a truck was running over them. It was like hell, with bodies everywhere, people crying, people trying to flee,’ the Argentine consul in New York, Mateo Estreme, told the Buenos Aries daily Clarin.
‘They lived moments of companionship, of friendship, they bought gifts for their children, their families, many of them had their gifts with them,’ Estreme said in Spanish.
‘They thought of their families and imagine this terrorist moving forward with his truck … it is unthinkable, terribly sad and none of us has words to describe it,’ the diplomat went on.
‘One of them, it was the first time he left Argentina… and the first time he leaves the country a terrorist kills him in New York,’ said Estreme. ‘There are no words to describe that.’
The Argentinian victims were in a larger group of men who were all celebrating their 30th school reunion.
A sixth man in the group of Argentinians, Martin Ludovico Marro, was also hospitalized in the incident, which killed a total of eight people and injured 12.
A sixth man in the group of Argentinians, Martin Ludovico Marro, was also hospitalized in the incident, which killed a total of eight people and injured 12.
Erlij, who runs a steel mill in Argentina, had paid out of his own pocket to ensure two of the members of the group could be there, local news reported.
The Argentine government confirmed Tuesday night that most of the group – all in the class of 1987 – had flown to New York for a school reunion.
Erlij, 48, who owned the Argentinian steel company Ivanar, had paid for flights for two of his friends so they could attend, according to Infobae.
On arriving in New York, the group was met by Marro, the man who was injured in the attack. Though born in Argentina, he is now a resident of Newton, Connecticut, Wicked Local reported.
The pair had hosted a fundraiser for Cote, a Republican, last week, he said. He added that Marro is a scientist at the Novartis Institutes in Cambridge, while his wife is an architect, and that they have lived in Newton for about seven years.
Tom Mountain, chairman of the Newton Republican City Committee, said the couple are ‘kind, caring and wonderful people,’ and said that the ‘horror show’ attack had left the committee ‘absolutely stunned.’
Before his death, Pagnucco had shared a photograph of himself in New York with a Facebook group dedicated to the multiplayer war video game War Machines, in which he played as a tank commander with the nickname ‘Janus’.
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