Colmurano, June 30, 2024 – “That area is too dangerous: it should be better reported, or at least help should arrive sooner. Manuel, the tourist-firefighter who dived, was an angel. He allowed us to hug Margherita again, and in intensive care we were always with her, until the end”.
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It is the story of the familes by Margherita Salvucci, the 28-year-old psychiatrist, originally from Colmurano and resident in Padua, who lost her life following an accident in Seixal, on the Portuguese island of Madeira. While on vacation with her mother Ornella, an elementary school teacher and former mayor of the town, her father Piergiovanni and her younger sister Ester.
The place of the accident (in quiet moment)
They are the ones speaking, together with Marco, Margherita’s boyfriend, who joined them on Friday evening to say a final farewell to his love, at the morgue.
“I did it as quickly as possible,” he says. They will return together today to Colmurano, in the evening, with the flight already scheduled for their return. Manuel, with whom the family has now established a bond, will also board the same plane to Italy (Rome).
It will take longer for the body to be returned. “It could take two or three weeks,” explains the mother, It takes days to translate all the necessary documents. I am in constant contact with the honorary consul, he said I can call him at any time”. The autopsy has been ordered, but the family still does not know exactly when it will be performed. In the meantime, the family continues to receive many messages of closeness and affection. “Margherita was a special girl – continues the mother -, all the love, the support, that we are receiving these days testifies to this”.
However, the entire family and Marco are keen to highlight some aspects, so that what happened to her never happens again. “The island is beautiful – they say – but it is behind security level. The natural swimming pools, public and full of tourists, where we were at the time of the accident are not equipped with a suitable reporting”.
There is only a sign, they explain, which indicates the absence of a lifeguard. But it does not warn of the possible arrival of sudden and anomalous waves. “We were swimming and the waters were calm – says Ester -, we approached the wall to see the ocean below. It doesn’t say that such large waves can arrive, we couldn’t have known it.” “Margherita ended up in a trap”, says dad Piergiovanni bluntly. In practice the situation changed suddenly, in the space of a couple of minutes: a freak and very powerful wave went over the wall, sucking in and taking back everything that was in the natural pool. And overwhelming Margherita. “We immediately called for help – the parents continue in reconstructing those terrible moments – and the people present threw two life jackets with ropes towards our daughter. When Margherita fell into the water she was alive, she was talking, she was swimming with all her strength but she couldn’t grab the life jackets. She didn’t slip or hit, from what we could see. From the bar they called the motorboat with a doctor on board, which arrived after about twenty minutes. In the meantime he dived Manuel, an angel. He says he heard her speak, because he understood that she was Italian; Margherita fainted when she saw Manuel arriving, a moment before he took her”.
After Margherita was brought to shore, unconscious, it took another forty minutes to transport her to the hospital in Funchal. In all, according to her loved ones, an hour and a half passed from the accident to the arrival at the hospital. Water in the lungs and cardiac arrest would have been decisive, but only the autopsy will be able to give certain answers. “That area must be made safe, they told us that in 23 days 8 rescues were carried out – concludes the mother -. What happened must never happen again. We owe it to Margherita”.
