“Margherita was the daughter that everyone would want. If a parent could choose we are sure that the desire would be to have her like her”. An indescribable pain that of Ornella Formica and her husband, Piergiovanni Salvucci who combine the heartbreak of losing their eldest daughter, Margherita, with the sweetness of the memories that bind them to her. A breath to put an end to the crying and then the story of the dramatic moments of Thursday afternoon, when a family vacation that began last Sunday turned into an inexplicable tragedy.
Margherita Salvucci, 28, died after being hit by a freak wave on the Portuguese island of Madeira. Originally from the Marche region, she graduated in Medicine in Padua in 2021 and continued to live here to specialize in Psychiatry.
Margherita Salvucci, the mother’s story
«We were in Seixal – explains the mother – and like all the cities along the coast of Madeira there are natural pools formed by rocks and a retaining wall that allows the water to enter, creating a sort of swimming pool. Some of these areas are private and others public. We were in a public swimming pool on the north coast of the island. My husband and I stayed on the beach and our daughters entered one of the natural pools where the water was very calm and where there were a lot of people. I was on the upper terrace to take some photos of my daughters. At a certain point the waves got bigger: the youngest daughter went back, Margherita instead stopped, looked at me, a much bigger wave arrived and he took her away».
Terrible moments, scenes impossible to forget: «The retaining wall is so low that it was unable to stop all the water that entered and dragged Margherita into the ocean». The girl fought with all her strength to try to save herself: «My daughter tried to resist for several minutes, she was asking for help. There were some tourists with life jackets on ropes and they tried to throw them into the water but Margherita couldn’t reach them.”
The rescues
In the meantime, rescue services were alerted by sea because the young woman was now too far out to sea. «Then an Italian tourist, a firefighter from Siena who also took water rescue courses, Manuel Solms, when he realized that the ferry with the doctor would not arrive for twenty minutes, dived in with his life jacket. As soon as he reached her Margherita fainted. She held my daughter with her head out of the water for the entire time she was waiting for help: the tourists on land tried to hold on to the rope but it was too dangerous and even the fireman preferred to wait for help off shore.” After about twenty minutes the vehicle arrived with the doctor: «They gave her cardiac massage on board and also on the platform, because she had gone into cardiac arrest – continues the mother – then an ambulance took her to the hospital in Funchal where she died this morning at 10.”
The autopsy
An autopsy has been ordered on the body: «We have been contacted by the consul of Lisbon and the honorary consul of Funchal and it will probably take two or three weeks before we can bring the body back to Italy. We are waiting for Margherita’s boyfriend (a Venetian psychiatrist) who should arrive this evening (yesterday) and then we will organize the return». The memory of those tragic moments then gives way to that of Margherita: «She graduated with 110 cum laude in Medicine in Padua, then she immediately entered the specialization of Psychiatry in the same city where she lived and was doing her doctorate. She would have gone to Bolzano to study the topic of postpartum depression, then to Ottawa in Canada for her final thesis. My daughter has traveled so many times all over the world: she loved to travel, to meet people, she wanted to be among people. This time when all four of us were together we saw her die before our eyes».
Then the words for all those who were close to the family during the moments of the tragedy: “We want to thank the firefighter who was a hero. He risked his life and without his intervention we might not have found our daughter’s body. A couple of Dutch tourists drove our car all afternoon to take us to the hospital and three other swimmers helped us a lot. We also received a lot of attention in the hospital in Funchal”.
Then the appeal to ensure that similar tragedies – in a place where swimmers are often rescued – never happen again: «Those pools are traps – says Margherita’s father -, containers of water that are located slightly higher than the ocean : when the waves arrive they fill them with water and there is a wall from which the water overflows. Everything seems calm, but a very high wave is enough to carry anyone out into the ocean and kill them. What happened to our daughter must never happen again.”
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