Mother Criticizes Onlookers for Filming Instead of Saving Daughter and Friends Swept Away by Flash Flood in Italy
The mother of a young woman who tragically died with two friends in a flash flood in Italy has condemned bystanders for filming the incident instead of attempting to help.
Patrizia Cormos, 20, Bianca Doros, 23, and Cristian Molnar, 25, were walking along the banks of the Natisone River in Friuli Venezia Giulia last Friday. They crossed to a small gravel island, only to be caught off guard by sudden floodwaters from torrential rain upstream.
A video showing the trio clinging to each other as the river rose above their waists went viral in Italy. Moments later, they were swept away by the flood.
The bodies of Patrizia and Bianca were found on Sunday, two days after being engulfed by the floodwaters. Cristian Molnar remains missing and is presumed drowned.
Mihaela Ioan, Patrizia's mother, expressed her anguish over the lack of action from onlookers. "What really causes me pain is the fact that everyone took photos and videos and nobody saved them. Nobody. They should not have been taking videos," she told Corriere della Sera.
She admitted she couldn’t bring herself to watch the video but had seen a photo of the friends hugging as the floodwaters approached. "None of them knew the river. They found it after doing searches online. My daughter could have saved herself but she stayed with her friend Bianca who didn’t know how to swim."
Italian police and prosecutors have launched an investigation into the deaths, including the emergency response. Prosecutor Massimo Lia stated that Ms. Cormos made four calls to the emergency number from her mobile phone, the first at 13:29, with helicopters dispatched too late to rescue the trio. "From our preliminary assessments, everything unfolded in about half an hour. From a situation of apparent tranquillity, the river developed into a tumultuous flood which then swept them away," Lia explained.
The bodies of the two women, both Romanian nationals, were found between 700 meters and a kilometer downstream from where they were swept away. Their bodies will be flown back to Romania for the funerals.
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