Italian care home resident, 91, dies while trying to escape by lowering himself out of a window with a bedsheet tied around his waist
- A 91-year-old care home resident has died while trying to escape
- He tied his bedsheet around his waist and tried to lower himself from a window
- The director of the Italian retirement home said he was ‘shocked’
A 91-year-old man has died in an accident while trying to escape his care home in Italy by lowering himself out of a window with a bedsheet tied around his waist.
Mario Finotti was a resident at the Opera Pia Francesco Bottoni retirement home in Papozze, a town in the Italian region of Veneto.
He had tried to leave his room on the first floor by lowering himself from the window with a sheet he had tied around his waist.
Finotti had been living in the carehome (pictured) for around a year at the time of his escape
Local Italian newspapers reported a slip may have caused a fatal compression of the lungs, killing him as he swung down.
Shift workers found his body dangling from the window at around 6.30am on Tuesday, according to local newspaper Corriere del Veneto.
Finotti was born in the small town and lived there all his life.
He had no children and remained unmarried, refusing caretakers in his later years.
Retirement home director Luca Avanzi told Corriere della Sera: ‘We are shocked by what has happened.
The body of Mario Finotti was found dangling from the window of his carehome at around 6.30am on Tuesday after he tried to escape his by tying a bedsheet around his waist
‘Mario Finotti was well, he was not suffering from any degenerative pathologies. It is not known what was going through his head because, from a psychological point of view, he was peaceful.
‘Also, last week, his niece had spoken to the psychologist via video call and a good psychological picture of the elderly man had emerged.’
Prosecutor Francesco D’Abrosca has since said no third party is criminally liable for the incident.
As such, it is not clear if the authorities are investigating.
The emergency services have since removed the body and handed it over to family members so a funeral can take place.
Finotti had been in the retirement home for around a year.
Papozze Mayor Pierluigi Mosca, who knew Finotti, told the local paper that the elderly man was passionate about politics, often making excuses to visit him in his office
He said loneliness was a likely motive for Finotti’s escape, as Covid-19 restrictions had meant he was no longer able to make visits.
The area were he lived had become depopulated since the pandemic, added the Mayor, adding that Finotti had never expressed any desire to go into a retirement home.
Italy has the oldest population in Europe, with Statista data showing 22.8% of its inhabitants as older than 65.
The country suffered worse under Covid-19 compared with its neighbors, reporting over 140,000 confirmed deaths compared with over 120,000 in France and 90,000 in Spain, according to Our World in Data.