He was busy working on a dam on the Adda riverunder the A4 motorway bridge, when he suddenly fell into the water and was then swept away by the current. This is what happened on Friday morning, June 28, in the Concesa di Trezzo sull’Adda (Milan) area in Claudio Togni, 59 years old, from Paladina. Since his colleagues saw him fall into the water at around 8:30 am, the employee of the Italgen company of Villa di Serio, owner of the dam, has not been seen to resurface and, at the moment, is officially listed as missing.
Worker falls into Adda: firefighters search. Firefighters video
The research the helicopter of the Malpensa fire brigade, the divers of the Milan fire brigade, the Saf unit of the Bergamo fire brigade, the firefighters of Gorgonzola and Treviglio and the volunteer divers of Treviglio were involved. Given the large quantity of water in the river and the very strong current, the search conditions immediately appeared prohibitive. And in fact, since any dive was impossible, all the rescuers had to limit themselves to a visual search which, as of Friday, had not led to any results.
Togni has been working for Italgen for 34 years and, according to internal company personnel, he is a very experienced worker, “perhaps the most experienced” of the 65 employees. And the operation he was carrying out at the time of the accident “he had done hundreds of times”. The Carabinieri of the Trezzo station and the Pioltello company are investigating what happened, as well as the technicians of the ATS of the Metropolitan City of the Gorgonzola district. According to what has been possible to reconstruct, Togni, equipped with all the necessary personal protective equipment – in addition to safety shoes, a harness with ropes and carabiners attached to hook up to the lifeline that runs along the entire length of the dam -, together with two colleagues was busy inserting the platforms into the dam, that is, those wooden planks used to close the dam. And it is at this point that, for reasons still being ascertained, he fell into the river and was immediately dragged downstream in a stretch where the water forms rapids between the rocks for about 200 metresup to the pedestrian walkway “Padre Samuele Testa”. It is not known, however, whether Togni went further. Having fallen into the water, in fact, he was never seen to resurface.
It was impossible for rescuers to control this stretch of Adda on Friday. All research was carried out further downstream. The first intervention was that of the fire brigade helicopter which flew twice over the Adda to Albignano (Milan). Then it was the turn of the rescuers from the ground. The SAF firefighters of Bergamo, on board a rafting dinghy, inspected the right bank of the river up to the Sant’Anna di Canonica dam. The volunteer divers from Treviglio did the same on the left bank while the firefighters from Treviglio and Gorgonzola manned some dams downstream from Concesa. Drones were also used. The searches, on and off, continued until approximately 6pm before being suspended. They will resume on Saturday morning at first light in the hope that they are not disturbed by the expected storm phenomena.
