On Sunday night, tragedy struck Romano di Lombardia, a small town south of Bergamo in Italy, businessman Giacomo Chiapparini, 74, was crushed to death by 25,000 Grana Padano cheeses.
the accident occurred around 9:00 p.m. on Sunday. The emergency service personnel were alerted by the family when they heard the sound of the shelving collapsing, twenty responders searched and spent 12 hours to find the man.
Chiapparini had been inside the warehouse alone, checking a robot that was cleaning the cheeses, when the shelf filled with 40-kilogram wheels collapsed on top of him. It required manual labor to remove the cheeses and the shelf to recover his body.
Chapparini had established his farm since 2006, producing Grano Padano cheeses from the milk of his own animals and marketing it in an in-house outlet. His own daughter, Mary, recounts the story of her father’s work and dedication to make this dream come true.
“We have always been milk producers. My father Giacomo, the last of 7 siblings, worked for years with his father and his two brothers as a sharecropper before setting up on his own, earning his first farm and some land with his work.”
The tragedy has left the local town in disbelief and mourning the loss of an admired and beloved father and grandpa. The cause of the shelf collapse is still unknown.
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