There are many stories in an afternoon of forty years ago that went on for three days and that no one could forget. It’s the day that Alfredino Rampi fell into an artesian well 30 meters deep, with an opening just 30 centimeters wide. All of Italy followed the three days of rescue attempts live.
ALFREDINO
Alfredo Rampi was six years old. He was in the country house with his family, a few kilometers from Rome. They were all out for a walk, the child asks to come back alone.
He never got home. The father immediately gave the alarm that afternoon of June 10, 1981. His family, neighbors and the police searched for him all night. It was Brigadier Giorgio Serranti who identified the well.
Everything was tried: a tablet lowered into the well, two neighboring tunnels. When the child slipped to a depth of 60 meters, the last attempt: a person had to descend into the well. He tried it first Angelo Licheri, for 45 minutes upside down: “I grabbed him and he slipped away, I couldn’t do anything.” The speleologist Donato Caruso reached him without being able to catch him. On June 13 there was no more heartbeat. Alfredino was dead.
THE VOICES
There was that of the child who came from the well. «More and more feeble» reports Massimo Gamba in the book Alfredino. Italy in the well, published by Sperling & Kupfer. The child was talking to his mother. «He was desperate, because every time I said to him: ‘Alfredino, now we are coming, love, you have been so good. By now mom is about to arrive … “And he replied:” But how long mom? “… At a certain point he no longer believed it and as he heard my voice he was screaming, screaming, screaming».
Firefighter Nando Broglio spoke to him with a megaphone for 24 hours. The President of the Republic also arrives at 4:30 pm on 12 June Sandro Pertini who told reporters: «I’m not interested in television. Television is exhibitionism. I’m interested in hearing his voice. He is a boy who has exceptional courage… ».
THE FAILURE
Leonardo Sciascia said that it had been a night «like that of the first landing on the moon: the triumph of technology then; his tragic defeat now, in front of the Vermicino well. You can go to the moon, but you can’t save a child who has fallen into a well. The result was a sense of anguished helplessness, of despair ».
After Vermicino, which followed the earthquake in Irpinia by a few months, Pertini urged the creation of a permanent civil protection structure. He told Franca Rampi: «For her I created a ministry that did not exist». The Alfredo Rampi Center today promotes the culture of safety, protection from environmental risks, rescue in emergencies, learning to protect oneself.
THE TELEVISION
From 12 to 30 million Italians in the three days followed the recovery attempts live on Rai in unified networks. We saw everything, there is still discussion about the fact that perhaps we saw too much: the anguish, the pain, the mistakes, the disorganization. Everyone watching and everyone feeling betrayed shortly after. «If it is true that during the course of the drama people wanted to hear only about Alfredino», Massimo Gamba writes, «… after the Rai switchboards they received hundreds of protest calls. All people who felt betrayed by the public service, as overwhelmed and left defenseless in the face of the most shocking television show that has ever aired».
The images in the gallery above are the first of the Sky series on the story
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