The life of Eitan Moshe Biran, 5 – the sole survivor of a cable car crash in Northern Italy that killed 14 people, including five Israelis – is not in danger anymore, the doctors at the Regina Margherita Hospital in Turin have said, Italian daily Corriere della Sera reported on Tuesday.
Eight days after the disaster, the boy was transferred from the intensive care unit to a general ward. According to the report, Eitan does not remember anything about the accident that killed his father Amit Biran, 30, his mother Tal Peleg, 27, and his little brother Tom, 2, together with Tal’s grandparents, the children’s great-grandparents, Barbara Cohen Konisky, 71, and Itshak Cohen, 8
Another eight Italian citizens, including a five-year-old boy and an Iranian national, also lost their lives on May 23, when a cabin of the Stresa-Mottarone cable car connecting the town on Lake Maggiore to the top of Mottarone Mountain plunged to the ground after the pulling cable broke.
Since all relevant checks have excluded that Eitan suffered from any brain damage, the physicians believe that the amnesia is caused by the psychological trauma. The child does not know yet that he lost his family. His aunt Aya, a doctor in Italy, as well as several other relatives are in Turin by his side.
According to Italian media, their number one concern is to support Eitan and his needs, but they have also expressed hope that justice will be done.
“We hope that what happened will become a turning point to prevent other tragedies,” they said, Corriere della Sera reported.
On Wednesday, the investigators arrested three suspects, Luigi Nerini, 56, the owner of the company that operated the cable car (owned by local authorities); Gabriele Tadini, 63, the director of the service; and engineer Enrico Perocchio, 51.
Tadini confessed that he had deactivated the emergency brake system to allow the cable car to continue to operate in spite of some malfunctioning and accused Nerini and Perocchio of supporting his decision to avoid closing down the service for more extensive maintenance.
If the emergency brakes had been functioning when the pulling cable broke, the mechanism would have prevented the gondola from sliding back at a high speed and crashing into the mountain.
However, Nerini and Perocchio were released from custody early on Sunday after a judge partially rejected the preliminary conclusions of the investigators.
The judge said there was a complete lack of evidence against them apart from Tadini’s claims. Tadini was also released to house arrest.
Investigators are continuing their work and focusing on who knew that the brakes were deactivated and what caused the pulling cable to break.