NARDO ‘- The hopes that he was still alive, far away, hidden somewhere, unfortunately, died around 11 today. The body of Marcello Pantaleo, the 39-year-old nurse from Santa Maria al Bagno of whom there was no news since December 24th, was found by divers from the Nardò diving center at a depth of 22 meters and about fifty meters from the coast. .
As soon as the sad discovery was made, the divers of the Neretina diving center – among the many who have provided help in recent days – immediately alerted the divers of the firefighters, who immediately ballasted the body because the currents did not moved. Then, the recovery phases were carried out, also with the support of the coast guard.
The fears that the young man had taken his own life were therefore well founded. The 39-year-old, after throwing himself into freezing water, perhaps on the day of his disappearance, must soon have gone to the bottom, drowning. Of course, the intentions to put an end to it had been put in black and white in a long and painful letter found with the cell phone now off for hours in his Seat Ibiza, parked near the Torre dell’Alto, in the park of Porto Selvaggio. But in the days that passed waiting for some development, whatever it might be, the possibility of an estrangement, and therefore of the simulation of a suicide, had not been excluded.
The hypothesis was not completely far-fetched, so much so that in a technical table held in Lecce, in the Prefecture, on 29 December, the collaboration of the citizens who own homes in the Nardò marinas, in particular in the Santa Maria area, was asked. al Bagno and Santa Caterina, and usually lived in the summer, to carry out inspections, if the 39-year-old was hiding in any of these. And not necessarily to die in there, but maybe even just to stay away for a while. All in vain and, today, the confirmation of what was feared. Marcello Pantaleo took his own life by jumping into the sea.
The missing person was reported by the family on December 26th. Since that moment, an impressive research device has been set up, with operators and volunteers who have never stopped alternating and patrolling the whole area, by land and by sea. Law enforcement agencies, firefighters, coast guards, National Alpine and Speleological Rescue Corps, civil protection, Italian Red Cross, 118, local Neretina police participated non-stop in the operations.
Over 4 kilometers of marine areas near the coast were sifted over the days, with divers and speleosubers for inspection in caves and inlets, even in depth, and with the use of drones and a helicopter for multi-purpose research. wide radius from above. While the patrol boats of the Harbor Master’s Office concentrated their activity on the high seas, going up to about 3 miles from the coast.
By land, on the other hand, Tas search operations (topography applied in the rescue) were carried out, patrolling more than 5 square kilometers of surface starting from the Torre dell’Alto and up to the limits of the inhabited center of Santa Maria al Bagno, also using units dog lovers. An imposing effort for an unfortunately tragic ending.
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