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74-Year-Old Italian Man Dies After Being Crushed by Thousands of Cheese Wheels in Warehouse
"When we got there, the whole warehouse was full of cheese wheels on top of one another," said a local official
Papini/ROPI via ZUMA Press
Giacomo ChiappariniA 74-year-old cheesemaker in northern Italy died after being crushed by thousands of cheese wheels.
Giacomo Chiapparini, a local producer of Grana Padano, a parmesan-style cheese, was inside his Bergamo warehouse on Sunday evening, when a 30-foot-high shelf holding his 15,000 cheese wheels gave way, NBC News reported. Each wheel weighs about 44 lbs., per the outlet.
According to the Italian newspaper Il Messaggero, as reported by Newsweek, about 20 firefighters arrived at the factory before being joined by others from nearby neighborhoods.
Chiapparini's body was discovered on Monday morning after a search continued through the night. CNN reported that it took more than 11 hours to locate him under the cheese wheels.
"When we got there, the whole warehouse was full of cheese wheels on top of one another," Daniele Retto, a spokesperson for the local fire brigade department, told NBC News. "We had to call the unit that specializes in the search and rescue of people under the rubble, especially after an earthquake. They spent hours moving the wheels by hand, one by one, and found his body only in the morning."
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Speaking with NBC News, Bortolo Ghislotti, a friend and neighbor of the victim, said Chiapparini and his son Tiziano, 50, went to the warehouse after a machine that cleans the cheese wheels sent an alarm signal.
"These machines clean and rotate the wheels, so when they find them even slightly out of place, they send a warning," said Ghislotti. "It’s a common problem. So Giacomo and his son went there to adjust the wheels."
The friend said Tiziano left the warehouse after the pair fixed the issue, leaving his father to restart the machine.
"Tiziano told me he heard a massive noise, he turned around and saw his father buried under thousands of cheese wheels," Ghislotti told NBC News. "He knows that if he got out seconds later, he would be dead too."
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Authorities have not yet determined the cause of the collapse or whether Chiapprini was crushed to death or died by asphyxiation, per CNN and NBC News.
His funeral is planned for Thursday.
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