He was busy working on a dam on the Adda River, under the A4 motorway bridge, when he suddenly fell into the water and was then dragged away by the current. This is what happened on Friday morning, 28 June, in the Concesa area of Trezzo sull’Adda (Milan) in Claudio Togni, 59 years old, from Paladina. Since his colleagues saw him fall into the water around 8.30, the employee of the Italgen company of Villa di Serio, owner of the dam, has never been seen re-emerging and, at the moment, he is officially reported missing.
Worker falls into the Adda: firefighters search. Video of firefighters
The research involved the Malpensa firefighters’ helicopter, the Milan firefighters’ divers, the Saf Nucleus of the Bergamo firefighters, the Gorgonzola and Treviglio firefighters and the Treviglio volunteer divers. Given the large amount of water in the river and the very strong current, the search conditions immediately appeared prohibitive. And in fact, since any diving 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 worked for Italgen for 34 years and, according to what we learn from internal company personnel, he is a very expert worker, “perhaps the most expert” of the 65 employees. And the operation he was carrying out at the time of the accident “he had carried out hundreds of times”. The carabinieri of the Trezzo station and the Pioltello company are investigating what happened, as well as the ATS technicians of the metropolitan city of the Gorgonzola district. According to what was possible to reconstruct Togni, equipped with all the necessary personal protective equipment – in addition to the safety shoes, the harness with attached ropes and carabiners to attach to the lifeline that runs along the entire length of the barrier -, together with two colleagues he was busy inserting the platforms into the dam, i.e. those wooden planks used to close the barrier. And it is at this point that, for reasons still under investigation, he fell into the river immediately dragged downstream in a stretch where the water forms rapids between the rocks for about 200 meters, up to the «Padre Samuele Testa» pedestrian walkway. However, it is not known whether Togni went further. In fact, having fallen into the water, he was never seen re-emerging.
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.
