Cabin in the Verbano-Cusio-Ossola: carbon monoxide, one dead and five intoxicated

One person died and five others were poisoned by carbon monoxide in a cabin in northern Piedmont, in the Devero valley (Verbano-Cusio-Ossola) a few kilometers from the Swiss border. It happened during the night in an isolated hut on Alpe Buscagna, in the municipal area of ​​Baceno, where there were six margari. According to the first information released by 118, the victim was 37 years old. The conditions of a 19-year-old boy, transported to the Niguarda hospital in Milan, are critical. Two other 62-year-old men were transferred by air ambulance to Novara hospital under code yellow.

Two of the five shepherds are currently being treated in a hyperbaric chamber in Fara Novarese, at the I Cedri nursing home. However, the conditions of another injured person, the 19-year-old boy, are of greater concern.

The gas leak occurred during the night. The causes of the monoxide leak are being investigated by the Alpine Rescue Service of the Financial Police: the origin could be a malfunction in the combustion of a boiler serving the hut. The rescuers, alerted by one of the intoxicated shepherds, reached the area on foot, which is located about an hour's walk from Alpe Devero.

The man who died in the cabin during the night is Pietro Maria Fiori, 35 years old, from Milan. From the first information gathered, it emerges that he was spending a period of time in the mountain pastures as a volunteer through an association that selects people willing to help farmers in the summer. Together with him, a 19-year-old girl, also a volunteer, is now hospitalized in serious conditions at the Niguarda hospital in Milan.

The other intoxicated people are the manager of the mountain pasture and his father, as well as two employees of the Francesco Biondo agricultural company, where the victim was spending his volunteering experience. The Domodossola financial police's mountain rescue team is investigating the incident, seizing the boiler from which the carbon monoxide leak is suspected to have originated.