“My son in a coma because of a piece of cheese”, the father's story: “There is nothing left to do”

In 2017, his son ate a piece of cheese produced with raw Due Laghi milk from the social dairy of Coredo in Val di Non. The product, it was later discovered, was contaminated with Escherichia coli. The 4-year-old boy contracts hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS). The child arrives at Santa Chiara di Trento in very serious conditions and will later end up in a coma.

Mattia Maestri has been in a vegetative state for seven years and now, after an initial hospitalization at the hospital in Padua and a long stay at the rehabilitation center in Conegliano, he is being followed and treated at home. The father of the minor, who is now 11 years old, takes care of him day and night together with his wife. According to the parents' story, there is nothing left to do for the child. Every day, the father explained, he is struck by 30 epileptic seizures and his situation seems to be continually worsening. The child's family members have now announced legal action to request the withdrawal of the trademark conferred on 9 March by the Val di Non tourism company to the Coredo dairy.

“The brand – underlined Maestri – was awarded for the production of a particular type of cheese. This is a disrespectful recognition towards a child who has survived for seven years.”

“For seven years our life has been hell, since our son was in a vegetative state, but we continue to fight because similar tragedies must not happen again,” explained Mattia's pope, Gian Battista, to Corriere della Sera. “The main fault remains with the dairy, if my son hadn't eaten that cheese he would be fine. Yet it was a product recommended specifically for children's snacks.”

The man then remembers the day of the accident: “After eating the cheese – he was fond of it – my son immediately felt ill, we rushed first to the Cles hospital where they kept him under observation, then saw the As the situation worsened they transferred him to Trento. At the pediatric emergency room, the doctor who was visiting him asked the pediatrician for a consultation, who however replied: not now, I'm tired and I've been running all day. We heard it.”

According to the man's story, a surgeon, “at that point took him to her department where he was operated on for appendicitis, in those conditions, but it wasn't that. If the pediatrician had examined him, at least they wouldn't have operated on him and maybe he wouldn't have gotten worse.” Instead he fell into a coma and was hospitalized for a month in intensive care at the hospital in Padua and for a year in a rehabilitation clinic in Conegliano “where – continues the father – they could only teach us how to manage him at home, by now he was in an incurable vegetative state. My wife quit and from that moment on she manages it day and night: 47 medications a day, one every hour and a half.” According to the father “there is nothing left to do for my son, it is increasingly serious. The last hospitalization was two weeks ago, the disease does not stop but we would like it to be respected.”

“In recent years I have never asked for compensation, but after the awarding of the trademark I intend to proceed and I will also consider the option of a civil lawsuit – reiterated the little boy's father – You don't mess with children's lives. May Mattia's story serve to save everyone else.”