Lecce, owner of a construction company dies struck by a gate

The owner of a construction company, Bashkim Rushani, 61 years old, of Albanian origins and resident in Casarano, in the province of Lecce, died this morning after being hit by a sliding gate. The police intervened on the spot. It happened in the town of Southern Salento.

The man was working "on the reconstruction of some pillars", explains the general secretary of the CGIL of Lecce, Tommaso Moscara. “The world of work in Salento mourns the ninth victim in 2026,” he adds. «We express closeness to Bashkim's family, collaborators and friends and dismay at yet another death that we are forced to register on our territory. We are faced with a daily emergency: in recent days only chance has avoided fatal consequences in other serious accidents that occurred in Maglie, Porto Cesareo and Galatone."

An emergency, that of accidents at work, confirmed by the data that Inail published yesterday: as many as 3,589 accidents reported in the province of Lecce in the first 9 months of 2026, i.e. an average of almost 14 reports per day. As of September 30th, there were 8 fatal accidents, to which unfortunately today's tragedy is added. The toll is tragic: in the last 10 years 149 workers have fallen in Salento (818 in Puglia), which becomes 252 considering the data starting from 2010 (1,450 in Puglia).

«There is a lot of work to be done from a cultural and social point of view», underlines Moscara. "It is necessary that safety standards and health protection become the responsibility and competence of each company, of each worker, because dying at work is unacceptable", maintains the trade unionist. «The numbers are impressive. The entire socio-economic and institutional system must take charge of this absurd phenomenon. An accident at work always occurs due to a series of cultural, instrumental and contractual causes: it is necessary to act with prevention and training actions, but also with more careful laws and more stringent controls".