Italian prosecutors have opened an investigation for manslaughter in the case of the three young people of Romanian origin taken by the waters of the Natisone river and want to find out if there were mistakes in the intervention and if the young people could have been saved.
The investigation shows that the rescue helicopter arrived at the scene 30 minutes after one of the girls called 112 four times.
The Udine Prosecutor's Office is rescu operation for three young people - Patrizia Cormos, Bianca Bianca Doros, and Cristian Casian Molnar, who were taken by the waters of the Natisone river, which overflowed its banks.
The tragedy occurred on Friday, May 31. Patrizia took an exam at the Academy of Fine Arts, and after that, the three young people decided to go for a walk. They reached the Premariacco beach, then took a small road that leads them to the river.
In a few minutes, the weather changed, and they found themselves on a strip of land that was quickly overtaken by water. The alarm was raised, and firefighters arrived. They approached with a crane and threw a rope to save them, but the action failed. The three young people, who have meanwhile embraced each other, were taken by the current.
There is also a video recording of these terrible moments, filmed by a passerby who witnessed the attempt to pull the young people to safety.
On Sunday, the waters brought back the bodies of Patrizia and Bianca, while Cristian Casian Molnar, 25 years old, is still missing. The search continues, but an investigation has been opened to accurately reconstruct what happened and to determine if the tragedy could have been avoided.
"We have opened an investigation for manslaughter against unknown persons: in these cases, to proceed further, responsibility must be assumed through omission, not through commission," said prosecutor Massimo Lia from Udine.
"There is also a tragic fate in nature. Based on this premise, we are conducting all necessary investigations. Everything will be verified and examined. Both the manifest of the helicopter used for rescue and the signs warning of the swimming ban and the danger of drowning, but especially the time elapsed from the first call until the rescuers arrived," the prosecutor added.
The investigation was opened at the request of the Italian Minister for Civil Protection and Maritime Policies, Sebastiano Musumeci, as reported by Corriere del Veneto.
Four calls to 112, the last one unanswered
One aspect that needs to be verified is the presence or absence of warning signs about the danger, mentioned Massimo Lia.
Natisone is defined as a torrential watercourse, which can lead to sudden floods, as it was on May 31. Along its course, there are signs prohibiting swimming and indicating the danger of drowning. On the other hand, there are no signs regarding the risk of "sudden floods."
"The Italian press wonders: And, once again, were the rescues delayed? Did the firefighters' helicopter depart from a base too far away? Were the intervention protocols respected? We will conduct all necessary investigations to determine if the rescue operations were timely, but I want to specify that, at the current stage, there are no concrete elements that lead us in this direction, but the checks are in an early stage," the prosecutor emphasized.
He said that one of the victims, Patrizia, made four calls to the emergency number 112, and the last one went unanswered. The first call was at 1:29 pm, and the others in the immediately following minutes.
The minutes in which the three young people died
- 1:29 pm - the first emergency call, followed by others in the immediately following minutes. Patrizia provides her name and address, asking the operators to help her and notify her mother. The request for technical assistance to the firefighters is transmitted, and the request for the rescue helicopter to depart from Marco Polo airport in Venice.
- 1:35 pm - the driver of a school bus crossing the bridge near where the young people were in distress notices that they are in trouble. He alerts the carabinieri, who, in turn, inform the firefighters.
- 1:47 pm - a passerby who sees the young people in danger also calls 112. The firefighters are already on the scene. Cristian Molnar dives into the water and tries to swim towards two volunteers and a firefighter. However, the current drags him, and he returns to the strip of land, to Bianca and Patrizia. While waiting for the arrival of the air ambulance, firefighters try to throw ropes to the three young people, hoping they can grab them.
- 1:48 pm - the young people embrace each other tightly, trying to resist.
- 1:58 pm - the flood from the Natisone river violently sweeps the gravel of the islet, and Cristian, Patrizia, and Bianca slip and are pulled by the force of the current. A firefighter jumps into the water in a desperate attempt to recover them, risking his life, but he fails to catch anyone.
- 2:00 pm - the helicopter finally arrives at the scene with paramedics and technicians on board, but it is too late. 30 minutes have passed since the first emergency call.
"From the initial investigations, everything happened within a time frame that can be quantified at approximately half an hour. From an apparently calm situation, that tumultuous flow of the Natisone river overwhelmed them," said prosecutor Massimo Lia.
Patrizia's Mother: More could have been done
Overwhelmed by grief, Mihaela Tritean, Patrizia's mother, believes that more could have been done to save the young people.
"What hurts me the most is that everyone took photos and videos, but no one moved to save them. No one. Maybe they could have been saved. It wasn't important to film. They had gone for a walk, she called 112 several times. She left her name, address. She said 'Call my mother'," the woman said to Messaggero Veneto.
She remembers the last conversation with her daughter: "After the exam at the Academy, which she took on Friday morning, she called me and said: 'I did very well, I knew everything'."
The woman said she refused to watch the videos circulating about the incident, limiting herself to a few photos. "She knew how to swim, I took her to swimming lessons," the woman remembered, adding that her daughter waited for Bianca, her friend who did not know how to swim.
No Autopsy Conducted
The Prosecutor's Office did not order autopsies in the cases of Patrizia and Bianca.
"The investigations on the bodies, the dynamics of the events, the documentation we all saw, and the external examination conducted by the forensic doctor on the bodies allow, with reasonable certainty, to identify the cause of death as drowning and various traumas. Therefore, the external autopsy was considered sufficient, also to return the girls to their families, for the funeral ritual," explained prosecutor Massimo Lia.
The coffins with the girls' bodies were placed at the Mansutti funeral home in the San Vito urban cemetery in Udine. The two girls were dressed in a wedding dress, as is the tradition in Romania.
On Wednesday, a moment of prayer will be officiated by two priests, one Orthodox and one Catholic, to symbolize the unity in prayer of different faiths.
At the end of the service, the coffins with the lifeless bodies of the girls will depart for Romania, and the funerals will take place in Tarna Mare, in the Satu Mare county.