Fire in the prison of Sassari: intoxicated agents and prisoners. "Catastrophe has come close"

Moments of terror in the Sassari penitentiary of Bancali, for a fire started by a prisoner suffering from mental problems, with the smoke that invaded an entire section, triggering panic and causing the poisoning of some officers and prisoners.

The prison police union Uilpa reported the incident.

"By now prisoners with psychiatric problems represent one of the most serious emergencies and last night a tragedy came close, given that without the courageous intervention of the agents, the victims would have been counted ", explains the general secretary of Uilpa of Sardinia Michele Cireddu.

Then the reconstruction of the story: «After starting the fire, the prisoner barricaded himself in the bathroom, but the police officers on duty, putting their lives at risk, braved the flames to rescue him. All while the toxic fumes - continues Cireddu - quickly invaded the whole section, also limiting the view . However, the agents managed, albeit with difficulty, to force open the bathroom door and rescue the detainee. Then they put out the flames with fire extinguishing devices, preventing them from spreading everywhere. If they hadn't succeeded - continues the secretary - it is not difficult to imagine a colossal tragedy with a dramatic number of victims ».

However, numerous detainees had to resort to medical care and so did the officers who intervened. «They suffered chest pains and were breathing with difficulty, so they were transported by ambulance to the hospital where they were diagnosed with poisoning . At present, fortunately, they are not at risk of life», concludes Cireddu.

Then the reflection on the high-risk situation in Bancali: «Just on 22 June last we addressed the emergency of psychiatric prisoners in Sardinia, in a conference organized by AIGA where the President of the Surveillance Court, the bar association of the Sardinian provinces and various insiders. Everyone agreed on the need to assign psychiatric patients to suitable structures to be able to treat and assist them , but despite the requests from the institutions and various associations, politics continues to stall. Prison - Cireddu underlines - is not the right place for their management and what happened in Bancali is proof of this".

Again: «The courage, the professional ability of the Agents who have avoided a catastrophe is inversely proportional to the initiative capacity of the Administration's top management, also incapable of assigning a commander and a director on a permanent basis in a problematic Institute such as the one in Sassari, where there are several prison circuits including the 41 bis and the high security which together with the psychiatric prisoners constitute an explosive mix. The Government therefore recognizes the prison emergency and intervenes before very serious tragedies occur » .

(Unioneonline/lf)