A 62-year-old factory worker died in
hospital Thursday night after being suffocated by a textile
machine near Padua last Monday, hospital sources said.
Luisa Scapin, from Villa del Conte, was trapped in the machine
in a factory at San Giorgio in Bosco.
Her overalls got snagged in a cable-winding mechanism and she
was suffocated, suffering grave injuries.
The accident happened at the Filtessil company, which makes
rewindable blinds.
A co-worker tried to revive Scapin by practising cardiopulmonary
resuscitation (CPR) but she did not regain consciousness.
She was taken to hospital where she survived just over three
days.
The company owner is under investigation for culpable
manslaughter.
Italy is in the middle of a spate of deadly workplace accidents.
Such deaths are a national tragedy, Justice Minister Marta
Cartabia said Wednesday amid the months-long spate of fatal
accidents at the workplace across the country.
She said the government had intervened by increasing the number
of inspectors and checks, but a new law on administrative
responsibility would be even more useful in stopping the rash of
fatalities.
Premier Mario Draghi said last Friday that workplace safety
norms recently approved by the government sent
the "unequivocal signal that you cannot save (money) at the
expense of workers' lives" after the shocking spate of workplace
accident deaths continued with more fatalities, one near Milan
in Lombardy, one near Modena in Emilia-Romagna, one at Sassari
in Sardinia and one at Barletta in Puglia.
"As the government, we committed ourselves to doing everything
possible to prevent these episodes happening again."
Draghi said "the norms are the realisation of this promise. We
are increasing the numbers of workplace inspectors, we are
stiffening sanctions, we are boosting computerization to improve
checks."
Italy's big three trade-union confederations, CGIL, CISL and
UIL, will hold a major demonstration on Rome on November 13 to
demand action on health and safety to stem the tide of deaths.
Some 667 people lost their lives in workplace accidents in the
first seven months of the year, sources said last month.
The issue has been top of public debate in Italy since the death
of the 22-year-old mother of a five-year-old boy, Luana
D'Orazio, in a textile mill accident near Prato on May 3.
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