The woman retraces the moments in which the flood ripped her son away from her arms
A year later, the mother of Mattia, who disappeared in the Marche floods in September 2022, remember what happened. She will never be able to forget the moment in which the flood of the river overwhelmed her in full, ripping her little son away from her arms. The child’s body was found only much later. Just recently the news of the discovery of the last missing person also arrived.
Silvia Mereu, the mother of little Mattia, the child who died in the 2022 Marche flood, fought with all her strength. She tried to hold the baby, even when they were both submerged in water. But, unfortunately, she didn’t make it.
There full of the river he took her son’s embrace away from her forever. One year after that tragedy, which caused many victims (the last missing person was only recognized in recent days), the woman remembers what happened.
Some images are very clear and never leave me. I was in the car with Mattia, shortly after 8pm, and we were going from Barbara towards San Pietro di Arcevia, where my mother lives. Mattia was in the car seat on the seat next to me. It was raining, but nothing special and my son was even amused by the rain. Every time we caught a puddle and you could see the splashes on the windshield he smiled. Then, just before the bridge, in the Ripalta area, on the Fenella stream, which ends in the Nevola river, the nightmare began.
The mother of Mattia who disappeared in the 2022 Marche flood remembers those moments perfectly
I saw a mudslide coming down towards the road in front of us. So I put it into reverse, to go back, but in a few moments the water on the road rose so much, so much so that the engine of our car stopped. At that point we were trapped. The car suddenly rose up and began to float, dragged along the stream. For two, maybe three, minutes, during which I, although terrified, tried to calm Matty, until that crazy collision with a large tree.
Then the car overturned, filling with water. The woman took her son and carried him out a window. Then everything gets confusing. They were submerged, clinging to each other. But a wave took him away from that tight embrace.
I did everything to save him, really everything, but that damned water took him away from me. I myself don’t know why I survived. I only know that they found me two hours later, after 10pm, on a rise on the edge of the stream, where I managed to climb with the last of my energy.
They found Mattia only 8 days later, 13 kilometers away from the place where his mother last saw him. A year later, the woman tells what she misses about her son:
All. Starting with her joy at having started third grade the day before the tragedy. Just on the morning of the 15th, after lessons, he had collected 3 leaves with the teacher in the schoolyard, giving them to me as a gift. I kept one at home, I gave one to her father and I decided to keep a third in the car. Yesterday (Wednesday, ed.) he would have started the fourth grade, with her unmistakable smile. Beautiful memories, which mix with those of the tragedy of that evening, in which something incredible and completely unpredictable happened. In which, unfortunately, prevention and alert were completely lacking. If someone had warned us or simply cordoned off that road, preventing us from passing, Matty would still be here with me now, in this house in San Lorenzo in Campo, where we lived together and where I decided to continue living, despite the memories. painful, because this is his, our, home:
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