« Tragedia del Natisone, delays and omissions »: the Udine prosecutor asks to process 4 rescuers for the death of Cristian Molnar, Patrizia Cormos and Bianca Doros

There is a watch that beats relentless in the file files: it marks 13.29 on May 31, 2024, when a voice broken by fear calls the emergency number. It is that of Patrizia Cormos: «We are blocked in three, As on an island, the water is climbing ». On the other hand there are men trained to decide in seconds. Yet that damned day, after forty long minutes, at 2.10 pm, the Natisone river will overwhelm and swallow Patrizia, Cristian Molnar and Bianca Doros forever.

The hearing and accusations

Now it will be a judge to say if there was criminal responsibility in those delays. THE‘Preliminary hearing is set for Friday 19 September 2025, at 10, in front of the Gup Mariarosa Persico of the Court of Udine. The prosecutor asked for the indictment on charges of aggravated manslaughter. The accusations are heavy and, in various capacities, the acts speak of « imperial, negligence, imprudence », of « repeated omissions ». Four people accused: three firefighters – Andrea Lavia, Enrico Mr. and Luca Mauro – and the operator of the Sores plant, Michele Nonino. According to the accusations of the Prosecutor, the four contributed to the tragedy with a chain of errors, omissions, underestimations. The documents deposited by the prosecutors trace a merciless radiography of the rescue machine: six emergency calls within twenty minutes, unscheduled GPS coordinates, late or wrong helicopters activated.

The accusations

In detail, the turn of the shift in the Udine Fire Brigade operating room, Andrea Lavia, « disregarding the provision of the standard operating procedure adopted by the Provincial Command of the Fire Brigade of Udine for the management of the rescue calls, according to which » the intervention units deemed most close to the interested place should have been sent to the place « , omitted to give provisions to be immediately asked to the intervention of the » Double  » Room at the base of the 2nd Wing of the Air Force of Pasian di Prato ». According to the accusations, if « promptly activated, he would have come on site over 12/13 minutes ». But The call, however, would have been made only at 13.45. The flight will take off at 14.07. Three minutes later, however, Natisone had already overwhelmed the three boys.

Luca MauroFire Brigade Operator, for the accusations, « failed to immediately view the geographical coordinates of the place from which Patrizia Cormos had made the first call to 13.29 ». As, It would not have realized that the intervention « should necessarily be carried out with a helicopter». Enrico Mr.connects to the switchboard, receives two other calls desperate from Patrizia. He too He would omit to look at the coordinates and he too would not have understood that « the rescue intervention should have necessarily been carried out with a helicopter » as « double India », « Close closer to the point where the people were found to be rescued ». Instead, he would have alerted the Venice Fire Brigade Department of Fire Brigade at 13.41 (whose « dragon » helicopter would not have had the technical time to reach the area of ​​the intervention before the victims were overwhelmed by the full wave), however forgetting – although explicitly notified during the said call – which should have provided for the insertion of the mission of the aircraft in the S0115 computer system, fulfillment system. which provided only at 14.02.13 (of so the « dragon » helicopter, taken off from the Venice airport Tessore between 2.03 pm and 14.05, reached the area of ​​the intervention at around 2.28 pm, when the boys had already been overwhelmed by the flood of the Natisone river) « for the Friulian magistrates, Michele Nonino, Operator Sores, at 13.45 « Activate that Double India was promptly sent. » In addition, he would not even have used the emergency telephone line to activate the helicopter. Other minutes pass. The health helicopter starts only at 14.07. Too late.

Defense

Nonino’s lawyer, Maurizio Miculan, with the Courier He enters for the first time on the merits of the accusations and says he is confident: « After the moment of the media processes, the phase in which we can compare ourselves to a judge, third and impartial, for the assessment of the facts and any responsibilities in a story that remains dramatic for all the people involved ».

The parts injured

On 19 September there will probably also be the injured parts: the parents, the brothers, the sisters of the victims. Patrizia, 20 years old, was in the first year of university. Bianca, 23, had come to Italy from Romania as a child. Cristian, 25, wanted to become a physiotherapist. Instead, in broad daylight, at the center of a still quiet river, nobody managed to subtract them from Natisone.