In Valle Tanaro everyone knows Franco Colombo. For twenty years he was head of the Garessio volunteer fire brigade detachment, a role he left in April 2020 after reaching the age limit.
Municipal employee, having ceased his operational role, he is still alongside his men in the bureaucratic and administrative management of the detachment. Because he has stuck that uniform on us since April 1, 1986.
His son Marco inherited the passion for the firefighters’ uniform. He is, in fact, deputy head of the detachment.
“I remain at your disposal. You are a firefighter forever”, he told us when we interviewed him before retirement. And that’s exactly what he did. His skills and cold blood, even in the face of dangerous situations, were in fact fundamental in saving the life of the man who, in recent days, risked dying in a tractor accident.
The events occurred last March 25 in the Balbi region of Colle San Bernardo in Garessio, when a 79-year-old man was crushed with his leg under the track of the vehicle he was on.
Franco himself tells what happened, underlining how a series of coincidences allowed the man to be saved. “That afternoon I was in the farmhouse I own, a few kilometers from where the accident occurred. I was returning home and, along the way, I stopped to move some bent branches on the road, damaged by the weight of the snow. It sounds to me the phone, it was my son. He asked me where I was, because there had been an accident and there was little time. I was a few minutes from the accident site. When I arrived, the gentleman had a leg stuck in the track of the vehicle, his femur crushed against a tree and his head down in the void. In fact, he was hanging by his stuck leg. His face was purple because he had been in that position for at least 20 minutes. I don’t know how long he could have resist. I lifted his head and waited for the arrival of a friend, who in the meantime had been alerted. Together, we took off his boot and managed to remove his leg from the track. By now he no longer felt it. In the meantime I the firefighters of Garessio and Mondovì arrived and the 118 helicopter took him to hospital in Cuneo”.
The gentleman is still hospitalized, but fortunately he did not suffer serious consequences.
“I’m glad I was in the area – concludes Franco. He managed to call a friend who was in town. The firefighters were called but, between organization and the journey, too much time would have passed. My son knew I was there and that I would be able to intervene, so he immediately called me and I managed to do some maneuvers while waiting for help to arrive. Things had to be like this. There are a thousand ifs… if I hadn’t been in the area and waited to arrange the branches before returning to town, if he hadn’t been able to make the phone call… everything was fine. As for me, I did what any firefighter would do.”
