He slumped to the floor , killed at the age of 84 by a heart attack . She , 82 years old and suffering from Alzheimer's, lay next to her husband , because she fell while trying to rescue him and was unable to get up to ask for help.

It is the dramatic scene witnessed by the rescuers who rushed to a house in the Treviso area yesterday morning.

For Giulio, a former army captain and former ENI executive, there was nothing more they could do: his heart had stopped beating for hours now. His wife , who suffers from Alzheimer's, was found in pain and in a confused state , after having watched helplessly over her husband's body for almost 9 hours, without being able to reach either the telephone or the intercom to ask for help.

The neighbors raised the alarm , worried because the couple, who have a daughter who lives far away, hadn't answered the phone and the doorbell for too many hours.

According to what was reconstructed, the 84-year-old would have been taken ill during the night , when he got up to go to the bathroom.

(Unioneonline/vl)