Fifteen-year-old electrocuted on pylon after selfie in Lodi

A fifteen-year-old from Lodi died of electrocution, remaining stuck halfway up the pole he had climbed shortly before to take a selfie, perhaps due to a challenge on social media. It happened around 6.30pm yesterday: two loud bangs were heard, then the discovery at 8pm, in Lodi, in the Cascina Bottedo area on the border with Lodi Vecchio. The exact dynamics of the events are still being examined by investigators.

Elena, one of the residents in the area, saw the teenager half an hour before the tragedy occurred. She tells ANSA: "I was passing from the road of Cascina Paderno towards the industrial area of Lodi when I saw this young man lying motionless sideways on the asphalt as if he were dead. Being afraid, I stopped 50 meters from him, trying to understand what was happening. At a certain point I realized in amazement that there was nothing wrong with him, because he suddenly stood up, perhaps seeing that I was standing there motionless and calmly began to fix his mountain bike as if nothing had happened. And it seemed to me like a challenge to see, perhaps, if I could invest him or almost."

Half an hour passes and the woman, as others close to the site of the tragedy say, explains that she and her sister heard two loud bangs. Then, in the air, a strong burning smell. The boy was shocked at that moment. At 6.26pm, in Terna's operations room, an alarm goes off: an anomaly is reported on the 300 thousand volt backbone. The technicians located the affected pylon around 8pm and, noticing the body attached to one of the lowest shelves of the structure, asked the Fire Brigade for medical assistance.

In the meantime, the family has raised the missing alarm for their son, Jacopo Rossi Trabattoni. Rescuers and investigators arrive on site, including the Lodi Prosecutor's Office, while the body is brought ashore only after 3 am because no one can get close to the line before the high voltage is removed while the backbone that runs through the countryside connects power stations and cities that cannot be left in the dark. Shreds of burnt fabric remain in the field.

The prosecutor's office immediately ordered an autopsy: the body was taken to the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Pavia. The investigators are trying to understand whether the pretense of being dead before the electrocution could also become a social challenge in the events. And therefore whether anyone else could possibly be involved, especially since it would appear that the fifteen-year-old took a selfie when he was already on the ladder of the 30 meter high pylon.

The mountain bike was recovered in the corn field under the trellis. The smartphone was seized and the social profiles are being analyzed. There are also cameras in the area that could be useful in the investigation. And while there is a crowd in Lodi for the Festival of Ethical Photography, a well-known family of professionals from the city mourns a death that seems to have no explanation.