from Barbara Gerosa
The accident on the Lecco branch of Lake Como. The man, 56 and father of a 6-year-old boy, was looking for minerals. The alarm given by the wife. He had been a member of the staff of the Natural History Museum
The speleologist who lost his life in a cave in Colico, on the Olgiasca peninsula, a few hundred meters from the Piona abbey, on the Lecco branch of Lake Como was an expert geologist. Alessandro Guastoni, 56 years old, originally from Milan, residing in Mandello del Lariohe was overwhelmed by the collapse of a stone slab, just over a meter from the entrance to the cave, which he had entered to look for minerals. The alarm was sounded on Wednesday evening shortly before 20 by his wife, worried about his non-return.
When the rescuers reached him, there was nothing more they could do for him. The firefighters from Lecco and Morbegno with river speleo teams, the men of the Alpine Rescue, Guardia di Finanza and Soccorso Bellanese intervened on the spot. The operations lasted more than four hours. The technicians lowered themselves a couple of meters from the surface, using special pneumatic cushions, which allow the lifting and moving of considerable weights. The doctors they couldn’t do anything but confirm the death.
Guastoni, graduated in Geological Sciences at the University of Milan, was Conservator of Mineralogy at the University of Padua and he had also been technician of the electron microscopy laboratory of the Natural History Museum of Milan. He had recently moved to Lario with his wife and six year old son.
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