Three 18-year-olds headed by car to school, the Donegani scientific high school in Sondrio; the crazy car that crashes into a wall. Two of them, the driver and the passenger who was sitting in the back seat, suffered serious injuries, but were saved, while for Renè Sottocornola, a young student residing in Cosio Valtellino, there was nothing that could be done. A story that deeply touched Valtellina and which dates back a year and a half ago.
On 3 December 2022, around 7.20 in the morning, the tragic road accident occurred along the provincial road number 16 of the Orobie in the locality of Torraccia, in the municipal area of Forcola, and today the legal case ended. The 20-year-old Alessandro Artene, who that tragic morning was driving the Fiat Panda in which he was going to school together with his friends, has agreed to a two-year prison sentence, a suspended sentence. The charge against the young man, who was seriously injured in the accident as well as the third boy who was traveling in the small car, was vehicular homicide. Immediately registered in the register of suspects, as was expected, the Prosecutor’s Office began investigations which, once concluded, made it possible to request a preliminary hearing. The young man asked for and obtained the possibility of a plea bargain, in addition to the 2-year sentence, judge Fabio Giorgi ordered the revocation of his driving license.
According to the prosecution, Artene caused the death of his friend who was traveling in the seat next to him by “driving in an imprudent, negligent and reckless manner, and violating the provisions of the highway code”.
The Fiat Panda was traveling too fast, the carabinieri found that it was going at 96 kilometers per hour on a stretch where the limit is 50 per hour. Not only that: the 18-year-old driver had decided to overtake the car in front of him, despite the curvilinear stretch of road and the prohibition imposed by the vertical and horizontal signs. He had not been able to control the car, which had started to slide, rotating on itself, had invaded the oncoming lane and collided with the fence of a house. Renè Sottocornola died instantly from the very serious injuries sustained in the impact, Alessandro Artene and the third boy who was in the car were rescued and transported to the Manzoni hospital in Lecco.
A terrible tragedy, made even more unbearable by the absurd series of events that had led to the student’s death. In fact, Renè Sottocornola had taken the train that morning at the station near his home, then he had received a call from friends who suggested they go to school together. In Talamona he then got off to get into that Fiat Panda in which, shortly afterwards, he lost his life.
