The story of Ettore has been known to most for a few days. We thought of returning first of all to give news to those who had let it slip, but also because like all good stories, hers also has something important to tell us. Something that can be fully understood with a cold mind, when the enthusiasm is exhausted, when there is time to stop and think. But let's start with Ettore.
Ettore is a 61-year-old retired warehouse worker. For about thirty years he worked in a company run by a Sicilian. He lives in Bergamo with his family: wife, children, five grandchildren who adore him. At the end of February he contracted the Coronavirus after returning from a holiday in San Domingo. There he had celebrated his fortieth wedding anniversary with his wife.
On March 4th, health conditions worsen. Ettore must be hospitalized in Seriate, in the Bergamo area, urgently. On the morning of the 5th he is intubated. Lombard health care in those days is already risking default. Its management is in crisis. ICUs lack the places and equipment needed to cope with the epidemic that has sent the entire system into a tailspin. The medical staff of the Seriate hospital are already thinking of moving Ettore elsewhere, to a less congested hospital. The availability of beds in the intensive care of the Civic Hospital of Palermo, in Sicily, is communicated.
No time can be wasted and so, after the authorization of the councilor for health of the Sicily Region Ruggero Mazza, at dawn on March 14 Ettore is transferred urgently and in critical condition aboard a military plane together with a fellow citizen of 62 years old. Sicily is once again present in Ettore's life. Without him wanting it. And it saves his life.
After a month, in fact, Ettore comes out of a pharmacological coma and begins to breathe without a ventilator. A week later, after the first negative swab, he is transferred to the infectious disease ward. And at Easter here comes the second buffer: negative.
Along the very difficult path, the family never stops encouraging him, despite the physical distance. Ettore has a thousand reasons not to give up: to be godfather to his niece born in October, above all. And then there is to accompany one of his daughters to the altar. His grandchildren dedicate drawings and poems to him every day, all so that his grandfather wakes up.
When on March 30, Ettore wakes up from a coma, he is unable to find himself in Sicily, the land that has enchanted him for thirty years in the stories of its owner, who emigrated to the North. In intensive care he hears the accent that reminds him of the funny one he has heard for so many years at work. He thinks it is some nurses or doctors from the South. Instead Sicily was all around him. To take care of him. Literally.
Hector is reborn. Lost in Bergamo, he found himself, alive, in an unexpected Palermo. An unexpected region. Above all an unexpected sanity. It is thanks to the collaboration and solidarity between north and south that he answered the prayers of his grandchildren. Thanks to the efficiency of a system that at different times, to the south, happens to look with suspicion. Ettore knows this, and this has increased his happiness and gratitude. As soon as he returns to Bergamo he will get a tattoo of Sicily, he already has the idea of the design - he says -, with a nice shade on the ribs, which points straight towards the heart.
Perhaps using indelible ink under the skin is exaggerated but for many of us even a simple pen note would be useful to remember that efficiency and dedication do not always depend on latitude.
