A 31-year-old man, a lift maintenance worker, was the victim of an accident at work this afternoon in a condominium in via Marchese di Casalotto, 55 in Aci Sant’Antonio, in the province of Catania.
The operations room of the Catania fire brigade received a rescue call for a person stuck inside the elevator shaft. For reasons still under investigation, the technician who was working on the elevator cabin was stuck between the cabin itself and the door of one floor and died.
Inside the elevator was a woman in a state of shock. The team from the Acireale Fire Brigade detachment took steps to free the 31-year-old man and get the lady out of the elevator cabin.
The health workers from the 118 Service, who intervened on site, confirmed the man’s death. The soldiers of the local territorial command of the Carabinieri were also on site.
On the news of “yet another accident at work in the province of Catania” the CGIL of Catania intervenes, “saddened and embittered”, and “participates in the mourning of the family of the young elevator operator Antonio Pistone, who lost his life while doing his job honestly ”. «The precise dynamics of the event are not known – add the Chamber of Labor of the Etna capital – but one certainty remains: it is not possible to lose one’s life due to lack of safety conditions which must always be guaranteed. The union protests of recent weeks have focused precisely on this concept: reducing fatal accidents to zero is not only possible but necessary. Something – observes the Etna CGIL – must change in the corporate approach and controls. And it must happen immediately.”
The territorial secretary of the Ugl of Catania, Giovanni Musumeci, underlines how “once again, unfortunately, once the news has passed the curtain will fall”. «Prefectural tables and conferences are of no use – adds the trade unionist – if we don’t follow up on what we are told. We pay for the lack of staff in the labor inspectorate offices and a lack of culture of prevention. Unfortunately the data this year are alarming: 119 deaths in the first 2 months of the year in Italy. The majority of accidents – recalls Musumeci – occur in family-run businesses with fewer than 5 employees, where training and prevention are seen as a cost and not as a resource to be exploited”.
