Lenny Fernández, Colombian Earthquake Victim Dies Shielding Family Dog

COLOMBIA — Among the hundreds of lives lost in Colombia’s earthquake, one story has moved the country in a particular way: a young lawyer in Cali, found in the rubble of her collapsed building, her body positioned around her dog — who survived.

Lenny Fernández, 38, a lawyer originally from Pasto, Nariño, who had lived in Cali for several years, died when the Ana Pilar building in the city’s Cuarto de Legua neighborhood collapsed during Monday’s 7.4-magnitude earthquake, which struck at 7:34 a.m. local time with its epicenter in San José del Palmar, Chocó.

Rescue teams from Colombia’s Civil Defense worked for hours amid the debris of the collapsed structure before locating her body. When they did, they found her dog, Salomón, alive beneath her, positioned as though shielded by her arms and torso. Salomón was pulled from the rubble and received veterinary medical attention, and is reported to be recovering.

The exact circumstances of how Fernández came to be positioned protecting her dog have not been officially confirmed by authorities, but journalistic reporting across multiple Colombian outlets has consistently converged on the same central facts: she was found lifeless, her arms and torso positioned as a shield over the animal, and her dog survived beneath her.

Peruvian outlet Ojo, among others, described the position of her body as making clear she had deliberately sought to cover and protect the dog, even as doing so left her exposed to the structure’s collapse.

Lenny Fernández

Fernández was known among family, friends, and her community for her deep love of animals. She had previously worked with the Junta Defensora de Animales de Pasto, an animal welfare organization in her hometown, a connection that friends and colleagues have highlighted repeatedly in tributes since her death. She was also a member of the Ipuc Ciudad Jardín church community in Cali, which remembered her in a public statement as someone who used her voice and service to glorify her faith.

El Tiempo reported that her final social media post, shared before the earthquake struck, has since taken on new significance for those who knew her, though the newspaper did not detail its contents publicly out of respect for her family.

A City Still Searching

Fernández’s story emerged during an active and ongoing search-and-rescue operation across Cali, one of five departments hit hardest by Monday’s earthquake, alongside Risaralda, Chocó, Caldas, and other affected regions.

As of the most recent official figures from Colombia’s disaster management agency, the quake has killed more than 240 people nationally, injured thousands more, and left hundreds still missing, with search teams continuing to work through collapsed structures including the Ana Pilar building where Fernández was found.

Cali alone has reported dozens of deaths and multiple total building collapses, particularly in residential neighborhoods like Cuarto de Legua, Capri, and Limonar. The Colombian Geological Service has also recorded dozens of aftershocks in the days since the initial quake, complicating both rescue efforts and residents’ sense of safety in structures still standing.

How Her Story Spread

Tributes to Fernández have circulated widely on social media in the days since her death was confirmed, with relatives, friends, and animal-welfare organizations in both Cali and Pasto sharing messages recalling her kindness and her bond with Salomón. One family member wrote online: “Cousin of my heart, you leave us so sad, but the love for animals, your Salomón, and the love of God, we will keep as a lesson. Until soon, cousin. We will meet again.”

Other messages from her church community and animal-rights advocates in Nariño described her as a caring and devoted presence in both circles, with her connection to Salomón becoming a recurring theme in how she is being remembered publicly.

Amid a disaster defined by climbing casualty counts, extensive infrastructure damage, and an emergency response stretched across multiple departments simultaneously, Fernández’s story has become one of the most widely covered individual accounts of the earthquake’s human toll. Her death was reported by nearly every major Colombian outlet, including El Tiempo, El Espectador, Semana, El Colombiano, and Vanguardia, several of which published multiple separate pieces on her story as new details emerged over the following days.

Coverage also spread well beyond Colombia’s borders, picked up by international outlets including Infobae, Peru’s Ojo and El Imparcial, Mexico’s TV Azteca Quintana Roo, and Brazilian outlet TNH1, which ran the story under the headline “Advogada morre ao proteger cachorro durante terremoto na Colômbia.”

For many following the coverage, her story has served as a reminder of the small, private acts of protection that likely took place inside collapsing buildings across the country on Monday morning — most of which will never be fully documented or known publicly.

It has also been shared alongside a small number of other individual stories emerging from the disaster, including the rescue of Daniela Lago Sánchez, pulled alive from the rubble in Pereira roughly 36 hours after the quake, and the deaths of seven-year-old Violeta Guerrero and her 71-year-old grandmother, Amparo Jaramillo, found embraced beneath the rubble of a separate residential building in the same Cuarto de Legua neighborhood where Fernández was found.

Salomón’s survival, and the specific circumstances in which he was found, have made Fernández’s death a particular point of grief and reflection for a country still absorbing the broader scale of the disaster, even as rescue and recovery operations continue across the earthquake’s affected regions.

As other stories continue to emerge from the rubble across the impacted regions of Colombia, Sociedad Media will remain committed to covering any new developments for our Miami audience.

Also be sure to follow us @sociedadmedia across all major social media platforms.