A 74-year-old dairy farmer and cheesemaker near Bergamo, Italy, died when a shelf collapse sent thousands of 44-pound wheels of cheese cascading on top of him, authorities said.
Giacomo Chiapparini was checking on wheels of parmesan-style Grana Padano around 9 p.m. Sunday when a 30-foot-high shelf gave way, local officials said. About 25,000 wheels of cheese were stored in the warehouse.
Chiapparini and his 50-year-old son, Tiziano, had gone to check on the wheels after a machine that cleans off mold and rotates them sent an alarm signal, according to friend and neighbor Bortolo Ghislotti. It was a “common occurrence” during the aging process, he said.
While Tiziana left the warehouse, Giacomo stayed behind to restart the machine. Seconds later, Tiziano told his friend he “heard a massive noise, he turned around and saw his father buried under thousands of cheese wheels,” Ghislotti told NBC News, adding that he also knew that if it wasn’t for a few seconds, “he would be dead too.”
Local fire officials arrived minutes later, but it took more than 11 hours to find the cheesemaker’s body.
“When we got there, the whole warehouse was full of cheese wheels on top of one another,” fire brigade department spokesman Daniele Retto 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.”
The freak accident rattled the community, especially given that no one had died when a 2012 earthquake dislodged thousands of wheels in the region, said Ghislotti, who is president of the local farming district.
Chiapparini was remembered by a neighbor as “very supportive” and “generous” to his community, reported BBC News, citing Italian media.
An investigation was under way to determine the cause of the shelf collapse as Chiapparini’s family prepared for a funeral to be held Thursday.
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