Sister’s hug miracle
IN the chaos of Italy’s killer earthquake, an older sister’s embrace allowed a young girl to survive.
The heartbreaking story of Giulia Rinaldo, 9, and her sister Giorgia, 4, was recounted yesterday by a bishop who celebrated a funeral mass for 35 of the 290 people killed by the quake that ravaged central Italy last week.
Bishop Giovanni D’Ercole told mourners that firefighters who dug the sisters from the rubble found them huddled together.
“The older one, Giulia, was sprawled over the smaller one, Giorgia. Giulia, dead, Giorgia, alive. They were in an embrace,” he said.
As Italy held a national day of mourning, weeping Italians bid Giulia and 34 other quake victims farewell with a state funeral, while Giorgia spent her birthday in a nearby hospital.
Massimo Caico, the firefighter who pulled the girls out, told the La Repubblica newspaper the position of the older girl’s body apparently created a pocket of air that allowed Giorgia to survive.
He told how a rescue labrador called Leo first gave a sign that he smelled something.
Rescuers began digging, finding at first a doll and then a cold human leg, that of Giulia.
Then Mr Caico saw the ground nearby move “in the rhythm of what could be breathing”.
“Maybe they hugged each other in their sleep or in fear, and the body of Giulia saved Giorgia,” Mr Caico said.
According to Italian news reports, Giorgia is in a state of shock and is practically not speaking any more.
She is only sleeping, crying and asking for her doll and her mother, who is also recovering from earthquake injuries.
Even as the funeral mass was held, rescuers kept searching through the rubble of the worst-hit town, Amatrice, though they acknowledged they had little hope of finding more survivors from Italy’s worst earthquake in seven years.
Relatives of the dead sat on chairs next to the coffins or knelt on the floor beside the 35 wood caskets. As the names of the dead were read out, hundreds of people gathered outside broke into prolonged applause in a sign of solidarity with the families.