Alfredo Rampi
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| Alfredo Rampi | |
|---|---|
| Born | April 11, 1975 Italy  |
| Died | June 13, 1981 (aged 6) Vermicino, Italy |
Alfredo Rampi, said Alfredino for his young age (April 12, 1975- June 13, 1981), was the protagonist of a tragic event in the early 1980s: on Wednesday, June 10, 1981, at about 7:00pm, he fell in an Artesian well, 30 centimeters wide and 80 meters deep, in the Vermicino locality, in Frascati commune territory.
Rescuers tried with great efforts to save him: it was thought that Alfredino was jammed to 36 meters deep, but the creation of a parallel tunnel didn't proved decisive, because the child sank down for another 30 meters. The drama was followed by a continued television direct, 18 hours long by RAIunified channels. A large part of Italy followed the progress of the situation with ansiety: it was esteemed that more than 21 million people had followed on television the event.
On the place was also present the then Italian President Sandro Pertini. A volunteer, Angelo Licheri, was lowered in the well because of his small stature and thin built. He succeeded to approach the child and tried to lace him with a harness to bring him out of the well, but for three times the harness untied; he tried therefore to pick him up by one of his arms, but unfortunately the child slipped even more below. Licheri was upside down in the well for 45 minutes when the natural limit is esteemed to be of about 20 minutes.
After many hours the voice of the child, reached by a microphone, seemed to be more and more weak. The child, probably hurt by the falls, died about at 6:30 A.M. of June 13, after another volunteer, Donato Caruso, tried to bind the child as Licheri did and was at that time that he realized that Alfredino was dead. The body was recovered on July 11, 28 days after his death.
Subsequently Alfredino's mother, Franca Rampi, founded the "Center Rampi" that helps the Civil Protection and the underaged.
[edit] Media question
This event had a notable media importance. It was the first occasion in Italy that a long direct attracted millions of people in front of their television sets to follow the events. The technologies for external directs at the time were not sufficiently developed to easily allow long transmission times and the events of chronicle were ordered in wave, deferred and synthesized. Besides the journalists at the time, some for modesty and some for ethical reasons, were contrary to transmit such a painful tragedy on TV. In this case the images were initially transmitted live because it was believed that it dealt of an accident that would positively resolve in a matter of hours. After sometime the situation appeared to be slowly worsening, but it was too late to interrupt the transmissions. If today it appears obvious that a journalist is inside events of this type, in precedence, and mainly in 80's Italy, the matter constituted a serious moral problem that was long discussed even months after the accident.
[edit] The doubt on the accident
Alfredino's death is also a mystery. In the photos of the frozen body, during the death declaration, it appeared that he wore a harness but as it was proved impossible to put it on the boy inside an Artesian well, the judge was certain that Alfredino has been lowered in the well and that therefore he had not fallen. The investigations however were filed for the impossibility to reach the truth.
[edit] External links
- Today in History: June 10 MSNBC article mentioning the story
- "Too Deep" article on The American Magazine
