A technical fault in the only working lift of the building in Via dell’Archeologia di Roma, owned by Ater, delayed the rescue and added further drama to the tragic death of Andrea, a 12-year-old boy from Tor Bella Monaca. Last Sunday, the little boy was found lifeless in his room, having been suffocated with the cord of his tablet holder. When the elevator got stuck, rescuers were forced to rush up to the ninth floor with oxygen tanks and necessary equipment. «Both elevators were broken. One for a month, the other broke the same evening. They repaired them this morning at lunchtime”, reported Loredana, Andrea’s mother, as reported the Republic. The mother describes the 12-year-old as a “hyperactive” child, always on the move. According to the woman, while she was playing with the tablet on the bed, perhaps he turned around by mistake and got the string stuck around his neck. “We believe it was a tragic fatality,” she says.
The social challenge hypothesis is excluded
Initially, the mother thought of a social challenge. However, the little boy had no social media, used the tablet mainly to watch harmless videos and was very controlled by his parents on this front. Andrea’s sister made the tragic discovery and when she found him she tried to free him. «I started calling him to eat. I had made crostini, it wasn’t his favorite dish. She didn’t answer. With my daughter we thought he was listening to music with headphones”, says the mother. Meanwhile, the police seized Andrea’s tablet and phone to reconstruct his latest online actions. Despite initial suspicions, no evidence has emerged of a voluntary gesture or a dangerous challenge on social media. Last Saturday Andrea should have become a red belt in karate and in July he would have turned 12.
