3 Children Rescued from Rubble on Quake-Hit Italian Island

MILAN (AP) — Italian firefighters working through the night, sometimes digging by hand, freed a 7-month-old baby Tuesday and then his two older brothers from the rubble of their home that collapsed when a 4.0-magnitude quake struck the resort island of Ischia during the height of tourist season. At least two people were killed in the quake that struck just before 9 p.m. (1900 GMT; 3 p.m. EDT) Monday, while another 39 were injured and some 2,600 were left homeless. The victims were an elderly woman who struck by masonry that fell from a church, and a second woman who was inside a building that collapsed. In the hard-hit down of Casamicciola, dozens of firefighters worked for 14 hours to dig the Marmolo brothers out of their home, where they were trapped alone after their father was rescued and their pregnant mother managed to free herself. Cheers went up with each rescue, which firefighters confirmed with exclamation mark-punctuated tweets. The first was baby Pasquale, who was shown on a video wearing a white onesie and appearing alert as he was passed to safety, around 4 a.m. It took another seven hours to free the middle brother, 8-year-old Matthias, who was pictured in his underwear and covered with cement dust before being quickly loaded onto a stretcher and into an ambulance, and two more hours to free the eldest boy, 11-year-old Ciro, who was credited with helping save Matthias. The children's parents were waiting for Ciro at the hospital's emergency room, his mo...
Source: JEMS: Journal of Emergency Medical Services News - Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Tags: Rescue & Vehicle Extrication News Operations Source Type: news