Overwhelmed by a car at the toll booth: who was Laura Amato

“At least her loved ones were able to greet her at the birthday party,” said Michele Antonio Vignali, head of obstetrics and gynecology at the Macedonio Melloni hospital in Milan. A scant consolation given the tragic accident: Laura Amato, 54, a health worker in the same hospital, was stationary at the Milan Ghisolfa toll booth, around 2.30 in the night, between Friday and Saturday 18 February, when a car crashed into her at very high speed – apparently 150 km per hour – ed she died instantly, as did the 59-year-old woman who was in the car with her. Leave a daughter.

Colleagues and friends at the hospital have decided to organize a fundraiser for his family, Vignali told al Corriere della Sera. Laura was returning from her birthday party, which she had only managed to organize weeks after her actual birth date, January 25th. Originally from Catania, she had lived in the Milanese hinterland for years now, and at Macedonio Melloni everyone remembers her as a trained and precise professional, the person that “we all would like to have as a colleague”, said Vignali.

The impact of the collision was so violent that not only the Lancia Ypsilon on which the woman was traveling crumpled in on itself, but the vehicle was thrown for several tens of metres. Firefighters were needed to extract the bodies of the two women. The man in the other car, a 39-year-old Italian-Moroccan with dual nationality and dual driving licenses, was found with a hospital bracelet, and his physical condition prior to the crash is unknown. Some witnesses speak of a car that proceeded at high speed in a zig-zag. His Lancia Musa was also destroyed in the impact but the driver was only injured and transported to the San Carlo hospital.