Alberto Félix Crescenti (born 5 January 1953) is an Argentine emergency medical doctor. He is known for being the general director of the (; ), the

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...

public

emergency medical services Emergency medical services (EMS), also known as ambulance services, pre-hospital care or paramedic services, are emergency services that provide urgent pre-hospital treatment and stabilisation for serious illness and injuries and transport to d ...

system, from 1992 to 1997, and again since 2007.

Early life and career

Alberto Félix Crescenti was born on 5 January 1953 in

Nueva Pompeya Nueva Pompeya (Spanish for ''New Pompei''), often loosely referred to as Pompeya, is a neighbourhood in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Located in the South side, it has long been one of the city's proletarian districts steeped in the tradit ...

, Buenos Aires. He majored in medicine in 1979 from the

University of Buenos Aires The University of Buenos Aires (, UBA) is a public university, public research university in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is the second-oldest university in the country, and the largest university of the country by enrollment. Established in 1821 ...

. Crescenti was the director of emergency of the in 1991, and the general director from 1992 to 1997, and again since 2007. He was in charge of difficult operations, such as the

1992 Buenos Aires Israeli embassy bombing Year 199 ( CXCIX) was a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was sometimes known as year 952 ''Ab urbe condita''. The denomination 199 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno D ...

, the 1994

AMIA bombing The AMIA bombing occurred on 18 July 1994 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and targeted the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA; ), a Jewish Community Center, Jewish Community Centre. Executed as a Suicide attack, suicidal attack, a Car bom ...

, the

2012 Buenos Aires rail disaster 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number, numeral, and glyph. It is the first and smallest positive integer of the infinite sequence of natural numbers. This fundamental property has led to its unique uses in other fields, ranging from science to sp ...

, the 2013 Castelar rail accident, and the

2014 Iron Mountain fire Fourteen or 14 may refer to: * 14 (number), the natural number following 13 and preceding 15 * one of the years 14 BC, AD 14, 1914, 2014 Music * 14th (band), a British electronic music duo * ''14'' (David Garrett album), 2013 *''14'', an unrel ...

. He was also part of the

LAPA Flight 3142 LAPA Flight 3142 was a scheduled Buenos Aires–Córdoba, Argentina, Córdoba flight operated by the Argentina, Argentine airline Líneas Aéreas Privadas Argentinas. On 31 August 1999, the Boeing 737, Boeing 737-204C operating the flight crashe ...

and the

Cromañón nightclub fire A fire broke out in the crowded República Cromañón nightclub in Buenos Aires, Argentina on 30 December 2004, killing 194 people and leaving at least 1,492 injured. The direct cause was the indoor pyrotechnics igniting the ceiling. The nightc ...

rescue operations, despite not being the director at those times. On 16 October 2024, Crescenti was responsible for announcing the death of former

One Direction One Direction, often shortened to 1D, were an English-Irish pop boy band formed in London in 2010. The group consisted of Niall Horan, Zayn Malik (until his departure in 2015), Liam Payne, Harry Styles, and Louis Tomlinson. The group sold o ...

member

Liam Payne Liam James Payne (29 August 1993 – 16 October 2024) was an English singer and songwriter. He was a member of the pop band One Direction, one of the best-selling boy bands of all time, alongside Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Harry Styles, and Loui ...

, who died after falling from a third-floor balcony at a hotel in

Palermo Palermo ( ; ; , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan province. The ...

. He did not answer questions to the media, including on whether the death was a suicide or an accident.

Personal life

Crescenti is married to Silvia, a psychologist, to whom he has two children. He lives in

Belgrano, Buenos Aires Belgrano is a northern ''Barrios of Buenos Aires, barrio'' or neighborhood of Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is made up of Middle class, middle and upper class people. Belgrano has three distinct areas: the main one that is made up of apartment buil ...

Awards and recognition

In 2018, Crescenti received a

Konex Award Konex Foundation Awards, or simply Konex Awards, are cultural awards from the Konex Foundation honouring Argentine cultural personalities. History and purpose Konex Awards are granted by the Konex Foundation, created in 1980 in Argentina. The p ...

as one of the 100 most outstanding personalities and institutions of the past decade from the

Konex Foundation Konex Foundation (''Fundación Konex'') is an Argentine cultural non-profit organization created in 1980 "to promote, stimulate, help, and participate in any form of cultural, educational, intellectual, artistic, social, philanthropic, scientific ...

. In August 2020, he was awarded the Outstanding Personality distinction by the

Buenos Aires City Legislature The Buenos Aires City Legislature (, commonly known as the ) is the legislative power of the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is housed in the Buenos Aires City Legislature Palace, Legislature Palace (), an archite ...

References

1953 births Living people 20th-century Argentine physicians 21st-century Argentine physicians Argentine physicians Emergency physicians University of Buenos Aires alumni {{Argentina-med-bio-stub