The tragedy of Vermicino

On June 10, 1981, Alfredo Rampi, a 6-year-old boy, was on his way home in the countryside around Frascati. In the afternoon, he was only a few meters away from his grandparents' house, but he would never return. Alarmed, the parents began the search for their son. At 21.30, they decided to call the Police, who intervened on the spot with dog units.

The agents located the child around midnight. The cries of little Alfredo, for everyone Alfredino, came from an artesian well covered with a sheet metal band. Shortly afterward, the Fire Fighters arrived from Rome. The well was 30 centimeters wide and 80 meters deep. Alfredino was stuck at 36 meters. They immediately found a way to talk to the child and reassure him, and a microphone was lowered into the well. For hours, a firefighter tried to keep Alfredino awake, telling him stories and establishing a relationship of trust with him.

A drill was urgently needed to carry out an excavation necessary for rescue operations, and an appeal was launched through the radio and television stations. At 8.30 am, the drill was available, and the work began. In the meantime, at the RAI headquarters in Via Teulada, the first images of the rescue operations began to arrive, with the child's voice captured by the microphone lowered into the well. At the end of Tg1 at 13.30, the child was about to be rescued, but unfortunately, the rescue attempt failed.

The case of local news, waiting for a happy ending, turned into a dramatic event that took place under millions of people's eyes and disrupted the schedule for 18 long hours of live television. The emergency in Vermicino held the country in suspense, gathered around a strip of land where rescuers tried everything to save the baby in a long sequence of attempts, in which optimism and concern alternated.

On June 12, the President of the Republic, Sandro Pertini, arrived in Vermicino and remained next to the child's family for the last desperate attempt to save Alfredino. At 5:02 a.m. on June 13 when, a speleologist descended into the well, reached the child, and tried to sling him. He tried again. He failed again. When he returned to the surface, he announced to his parents and the entire country that Alfredino was dead.

The tragedy of Vermicino marked a painful and important stage in the birth of the modern National Service, which started with an awareness of the rescue system's limits and the need for greater coordination of the resources involved in emergency management.

This and other emergencies - such as the Irpinia earthquake - gave rise to a civil and cultural debate that led to the overcoming of the old operational structure and to the birth, in 1982, of the Minister for Civil Protection Coordination and the Department of Civil Protection, within the Presidency of the Council of Ministers.

Photo: The rescue operations of little Alfredo Rampi, who fell into an artesian well in Vermicino, near Rome on 10 June 1981 / The National Fire and Rescue Service