It is not a miracle but a simple instinctive gesture and in a handful of interminable seconds it saved the life of a little girl who fell from the fifth floor of a building.
The protagonist of the gesture is a bank employee, a 37-year-old from Turin, Mattia Aguzzi, who yesterday morning caught a little girl – who will turn four in a few days – who fell from the fifth floor of a building in via Nizza 389, in the Lingotto district of Turin.
It is around 10.50:XNUMX when the little girl climbs over the balcony railing and onto the ledge. The scene is seen by a boy who is looking out from the building opposite. The young man begins to scream in desperation to the people who are on the street asking for help.
Among them is Aguzzi who lives in the area and who is going to buy bread with his partner. The screams attract the attention of the couple who look up and see the distressing scene.
“The little girl continued to lean out more and more and climbed over the ledge, holding herself up only with her arms and her legs in the air,” Aguzzi said. “I started yelling at her to stay still and come back in but she didn’t hear.”
The little girl falls and at this point Mattia intervenes. “When I saw her fall I put myself in the trajectory, I closed my eyes and hoped that everything would go well, I blocked her, cushioning the blow and we both fell to the ground,” explains the 37-year-old.
Mattia is kneeling on the sidewalk, in his arms he has the little girl who initially shows no sign of life, but then begins to cry. “She’s alive, she’s alive,” Mattia and his girlfriend repeat, and while the woman calls for help, the little girl’s mother and father come down to the street.
They are in a state of shock. Along with the 118 doctors and the ambulances, the Carabinieri also arrive on site, who are entrusted with the investigation. The child is transported to the Regina Margherita children's hospital, where she is admitted to the pediatric surgery department.
He has no obvious injuries, but will remain in the hospital until Monday, under observation, as a precaution. His savior is also accompanied to another hospital, the Cto, and is discharged with a two-day prognosis for a contusion to the chest wall.
“From the fifth floor the impact was strong, I found myself on the floor and at first I couldn’t breathe,” he explains when leaving the hospital. “An act of courage and altruism,” is how the mayor of the Piedmont capital, Stefano Lo Russo, defined Aguzzi’s gesture.
Lo Russo called the 37-year-old to congratulate him. “I will propose to the city council to award him the Civic Benemerenza, as a sign of thanks from the City.”
'I saved the little girl but I'm not a hero, I was there by chance'
-“I was down there and I was just hoping to catch her. I think I even closed my eyes, but it went really well.” This is what Mattia Aguzzi, the man who saved the little girl who fell from a building in Turin, told Corriere della Sera.
"My girlfriend lives not far from that building. We went out together to visit my cousin, who had called me to ask me to buy bread. I don't believe in fate, but if I hadn't received that phone call I would never have passed by there."
“I tried to imagine the point where she could have fallen and I positioned myself there,” the man recalls. “I carved into my mind the image of the little girl with her arms up trying to hold on. But then the weight dragged her down. There was no time to think.
I held out my arms and hoped to catch it. Finally it bounced on my chest and I blocked it for a moment. But the impact was strong and we both fell”.
“Come on, no, not a hero,” the man also tells La Stampa. “I did everything like this, naturally. I didn’t think about anything and I tried to do what had to be done.” He now says he’s fine: “At first I had trouble breathing. The shortness of breath. Or the blow.
I don’t know. They told me I have nothing and I’m happy with that. And anyway, now they won’t tell me that it’s better if I lose a little weight (laughs). It went well. What more could we want? Destiny put us there. Chance. Fate. As far as I know, we’re all fine. And that, believe me, is the most beautiful thing.”
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