A flight of about seven metres, the fall onto concrete and the inevitable fear that the worst could have happened. And instead, after the rush to the hospital and a series of tests, the surprise: no fractures, no internal trauma, just a few bruises. This is what happened about ten days ago in Seminara to GG, a local young man who was the unwilling protagonist of an accident that still leaves us in disbelief. The girl was busy cleaning the house and, while on the balcony she was cleaning the shutters with the help of a chair, she suddenly lost her balance and fell into the void. The impact was tremendous and saw the girl remain on the ground completely motionless for interminable seconds, until her family members, who intervened promptly, provided first aid and transported the young girl independently to the “Santa Maria degli Ungheresi” in Polistena. After the initial tests, GG was transferred to the Gom in Reggio Calabria for further tests, which ruled out serious consequences. A fall which, due to its height and dynamics, could have had a completely different ending. The news, learned only now, has aroused great amazement also due to a singular coincidence that many people from Seminaro have inevitably linked to their profound devotion to the Madonna dei Poveri. GG fell into a sleeper on Via Santa Maria degli Angeli, close to the ancient church of San Marco, where this year, due to the restoration work on the Basilica, the thousand-year-old wooden statue of the Madonna is kept. And on August 14th, for the first time in its history, the procession left that church, crossing streets never before traveled by the venerated image. During the return, a few steps from the church, the statue stopped for the first time. Then she continued her journey and, due to an organizational unexpected event, she stopped again after a few meters, right in front of the point where GG would then fall, remaining there for several minutes. A coincidence that today, in light of what happened, has profoundly affected the community. Naturally, no one can establish a link between the two episodes, nor is it up to the news to certify alleged miracles.
But in Seminara the story is experienced with amazement also in light of another episode that has remained in the collective memory: a few years ago the statue of the Madonna, surprised by a sudden downpour during the procession, was hospitalized to protect it in the garage of a private home where a man suffering from a serious neoplasm lived and who had been given only a few months to live. Subsequently the disease was no longer detectable. The Gom doctors, who had followed him with an innovative therapy, without speaking of a miracle, defined the case as exceptional. Years later that man is still alive and well. These are episodes that cannot be put on the same level and that it is not up to the news to interpret. But they tell well how deep the bond with the Madonna dei Poveri is in Seminara. A bond that today returns to the center of the country’s stories, while alongside the amazement at GG’s fate, the much more painful memory of Lorenzo Alampi also resurfaces, the bricklayer of about sixty years of age who died a few months ago after a fall from scaffolding, a short distance away as the crow flies. Two falls, a short distance from each other, with opposite results. In GG’s case, what remains is relief for a near tragedy and for an outcome which, considering the circumstances, is truly exceptional. The rest belongs to faith, to the sensitivity of each one and to those coincidences which, in a deeply devout town like Seminara, cannot help but make us reflect.