(ANSA) - TERNI, APRIL 12 - With a colleague he had rescued a woman involved in an accident on the Umbrian stretch of the Autosole and after a few months Fabrizio Binnella, a highway police officer on duty in Orvieto wanted her as godmother for his daughter's baptism.
The story emerged during the police festival celebrated in Terni.
The accident had occurred between Orvieto and Fabro in August 2018.
The woman, Esther Ponsillo, 40 years old from Caiazzo (Caserta), had been saved thanks to the courage of two agents while her husband Michele Melillo, 33 years old at the time, and her son Marcello, nine, died.
As she passed, a solid and deep friendship was born with her rescuers, in particular with agent Binnella, originally from Otricoli (Terni), awarded together with his colleague Guido Bomarsi from Orvieto with a promotion for extraordinary merits.
"We had arrived at the scene due to an accident - recalls Binnella - and we had found the car of this family wedged under a heavy vehicle. At that moment the first flames began to break out and we ran, extracting the woman from the passenger compartment and putting her to safety. Unfortunately for the husband and the son there had been nothing to do".
Binnella and Esther Ponsillo had therefore met in the ambulance.
"She was injured but not serious. I had burns on my hands. Our gazes met: we didn't say a word but in that moment it was as if we had said everything to each other" the agent continues.
A few months later the woman contacted the Orvieto road subsection, led by Commander Stefano Spagnoli, to get to know her "angels".
"We went to visit her in Caiazzo - continues Binnella - me, my colleague Bomarsi and my partner. A deep friendship was born and in August 2020 I wanted her as godmother at my daughter's baptism".
The commissioner of Terni, Bruno Failla, on the occasion of the awarding underlined the "great moral and emotional impulse that this story brings with it".
"Example - he defined it - of how the spirit of service of the women and men of the state police often and willingly leads to going further. To do exceptional things in normality".
(HANDLE).
