The lifeless body of Danilo Colella was found yesterday around 2:00 p.m. He was on the Parma side of the Enza river. The recovery operations were carried out by the firefighters with the SAF (Alpine Fluvial Speleological Nucleus) and divers. The 19-year-old from Reggio Emilia was swallowed up by the waters of the Enza around 12:15 p.m. on Sunday, after he had dived from a concrete bridle in the center of the riverbed just below the bridge that leads from San Polo d’Enza in the Reggio Emilia area to the Traversetolo area in the province of Parma. Thanks to the intervention of the Land Reclamation Department, the flow of the river was reduced upstream of the bridle: this reduced not only the depth but also the turbidity of the water and the speed of flow. And the divers who were scanning the seabed were able to locate the body: it had been dragged towards the Parma bank.
The Carabinieri kept onlookers and journalists away from the area, and prevented the boy’s family – who were waiting, torn by grief and anticipation, under a tent on the shore – from witnessing the recovery operations of the body.
Danilo Colella, a plumber in a company in Reggio, had gone on a trip to the banks of the Enza on Sunday morning with two peers (a former classmate with his girlfriend). After setting up a grill for cooking and preparing blankets for a picnic, Danilo decided to dive from the structure that, like a pier, juts out toward the center of the stream and from which the impetuous waterfall descends, forming whirlpools and eddies. The dive was filmed by his friends, there is a video made with a cell phone, but after a few moments, the young man began to call for help: he sank and resurfaced in the current. All attempts by the other two boys to form a human chain to grab him and drag him to safety on the shore were in vain. He disappeared shortly after, dragged to the bottom.
On Sunday the search continued all day. At a certain point in the afternoon, however, it was decided to suspend the divers’ activity, they would have risked their lives too. The search for the boy continued for hours until the evening with dinghies and also with foot patrols on both banks, Emilia and Parma, thanks to the river units of the Parma and Reggio Commands supported by teams of volunteers from the Civil Protection. The helicopter also arrived.
On Sunday evening that stretch of river was illuminated with light towers, while yesterday morning the search resumed with the help of drones. Then, in the early afternoon, also thanks to the operation to reduce the flow of the torrent, the rescuers returned to the water and in a few hours they managed to return the boy’s torn body to his family.
Danilo lived with his mother, a widow, in Reggio Emilia. He also leaves behind his sisters.
All the residents of the area between Sunday and yesterday, with bated breath, followed what was happening, until the tragic epilogue. “Groups of young people often come here to have barbecues – they say -, but every time we fear the worst could happen. We have reported it to the Municipality many times. You must not bathe in this part of the river, it is very dangerous. You cannot die like this”.
