"I saw my child drown from the veranda of the room where I worked, I screamed and ran down. As they pulled him out of the pool and tried to rescue him I kept screaming, until a lady came and took me, but I didn't understand. nothing more ".
It is the shocking, poignant testimony of Celia Herrero, the mother of 7-year-old Richard Mulas, who drowned in the swimming pool of the "Il Rifigio" holiday residence in Orosei on 2 September 2018.
The deposition took place in the Nuoro court, where the trial of Alessandra Gusai and Sergio Appeddu, respectively owner and administrator of the hotel "Gli Ulivi", which shares the swimming pool with "Il Rifugio", is held. Defended by lawyers Basilio Brodu and Adriana Brundu, they are accused of manslaughter .
Celia Herrero, who at the time was working on cleaning the rooms of the residence, reconstructed those dramatic moments of her son's drowning in over an hour: due to the absence of a grid in the pool drainage outlet, her hand was sucked in and he was trapped.
"Richard was a skilled swimmer, he competed for a sports club so I left him in the pool, but I checked him from the veranda," explained the woman, declaring that "only later" did she discover that the grid was missing. Richard's father Salvatore Mulas was also in the classroom.
"That morning - he said - I received a phone call and I arrived at the residence when the 118 doctors were trying to resuscitate the child. Unfortunately there was nothing to do: the absence of that grid trapped and killed him" . For the death of the child there has already been an abbreviated sentence of 5 months and 10 days for manslaughter against Mathias Wincler, manager of "Il Rifugio".
