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Alfredino Rampi, 40 years ago the Vermicino tragedy

2021-06-11T05:26:17.942Z


The child fell into a well and died after three days of agony, while with the few means of the time they tried to save him from the outside. The mother: 'Prevention is still missing' (ANSA)


Forty years have passed since the tragedy of Vermicino, near Rome, but the Italians have not forgotten that tragedy.

For three days the whole nation, glued in front of the television, followed the agony of Alfredino Rampi.

The story of the '' cursed well '' began at 7 pm on 10 June 1981, and immediately the radio newspapers gave great prominence to the news.

The child had gone with his parents, Nando Rampi and Franca Bizzarri, to the country house near Frascati.

The searches started immediately. The laments coming from an artesian well led a police non-commissioned officer to the tragic discovery. The first hours of the rescue operations were spent in the uncertainty of the best way to follow. A tablet tied to a rope was lowered to the child, which remained stuck and which subsequently entailed insurmountable difficulties in providing Alfredino with all kinds of help. Meanwhile, a very sensitive microphone was dropped a few meters away from the child. And so all the Italians were able to listen to Alfredino's invocations for help for almost two days, while from that moment the dramatic dialogue between the little boy and the fireman Nando Broglio began. No stone unturned: a '' spider man '' I am looking forto remove the tablet and began to dig with an auger. And around, many people, who came not only from Rome but also from nearby cities in the hope of seeing him come out safely.

Meanwhile, Alfredo was made to drink sucrose from a drip dropped down into the tunnel. The President of the Republic Sandro Pertini also went to the place of the tragedy and wanted to speak with the child. Then, the optimism that had taken a bit of everyone present in the afternoon of the second day of rescue, when the drill had dropped to 31 meters, little by little the anguish was replaced. Alfredino had slipped another 30 meters. And it all happened in an endless live broadcast of the two Rai networks. Vain were also the efforts of the volunteers Angelo Licheri and Donato Caruso, who lowered themselves into the well and tried to tie it up several times.

At dawn on the third day the child died. And immediately followed the controversy over the conduct of relief efforts with the launch of accusations of inexperience. And Alfredino's mother was not spared, accused of having gone away to change her clothes, of not having evidently "desperate enough". There were even phone calls to the Rampi home asking if it was true that the baby was not the son of Nando Rampi and if it was true that it was his father who threw him into the well to get rid of a child with heart disease from birth. Then followed a trial against the worker responsible for the excavation Elio Ubertini and the owner of the well Amedeo Pisegna, who were acquitted of manslaughter charges. Elveno Pastorelli, then commander of the Rome fire brigade,that assuming a responsibility that seemed to belong to no one and that coordinated the rescue, was instead completely exonerated in the preliminary investigation.

"In this country the culture of prevention is still lacking at a widespread level" is the consideration of Franca Bizzarri Rampi, Alfredino's mother. A thought entrusted to Daniele Biondo, psychoanalyst, of the board of the 'Centro Alfredo Rampi', founded a few weeks after the tragedy, unforgettable, even after 40 years, for many Italians who in thousands for three days remained glued in front of the television to follow the rescue attempts of the little one immersed in the mud. Indeed, when Rai decided to interrupt the live broadcast, the company was overwhelmed with protests and decided to re-establish the connection but could not tell the longed-for happy ending but the sad ending. "Even if in reality Franca Rampi - Biondo recalls - in front of those cameras did not accept to exhibit her pain and for this reason she was treated badly by a certain conformist press of the time. She reacted to the pain with great strength: she immediately made an appeal to mobilize as citizens and institutions, soon after she founded the association in the name of her son so that no mother would have to experience the tragedy she had experienced. It was the only three-day live broadcast that really told the reality: in which confusion, disorganization, psychological pressure on the rescuers were seen and the country was traumatized. It was really a story of reality, while reality shows today are only fiction "If on the prevention side there is still a lot to work on, on that of rescue"on the contrary, great strides have been made - underlines the psychoanalyst - and in Italy after 40 years unfortunately it has changed a lot and at the same time thanks to Vermicino. Everything that was missing at the time and that unfortunately, perhaps, also generated the failure of Alfredino's rescue has improved. We learned that there was a need for an organized rescue system, coordination between rescuers that was not there in Vermicino ".

Source: ansa

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