Benedetto Vinci24 years old, on March 14, 2012, died in Sant'Agata di Militello (Messina) for the consequences of a stab wound to the abdomen by his girlfriend Francesca Picilli who was finally convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 10 years and 6 months in prison and who then obtained a partial pardon from the President of the Republic.
But Vinci's family is now calling into question the doctors of the “Villa Sofia-Cervello” hospitals who treated Vinci after the wounding. According to a preventive technical assessment requested by the civil parties and ordered by the Civil Court of Palermo, Vinci would have died of a heart attack which could have been “intercepted” if the doctors had carried out routine tests which were never carried out. The young man suffered a rupture of the anterior interventricular coronary artery and a heart attack as a result of the stabbing. The consultants appointed by the Court, doctors Calogero Comparato and Pierangela Fleres, in the report filed in recent days at the Third Civil Section of the Court of Palermo, wrote that «during the stay in the thoracic surgery department of the Cervello hospital in Palermo, there was no an electrocardiogram was never performed nor was the troponin dosage curve monitored, tests which would have led the doctors to carry out further investigations, and certainly among these a coronary angiography, which would have allowed the diagnosis of the pseudoaneurysm of the anterior interventricular coronary artery.
Even if few cases of coronary rupture have been reported in the medical literature – they added in the report – the approximately 10 days that elapsed between the rupture and the cardiogenic shock would have easily allowed the patient to be studied and subjected to coronary artery bypass surgery. In consideration of these elements it is possible to believe that, if good medical practices had been adopted, Vinci would have had a 70% chance of survival.” The lawyers of the civil parties, Giuseppe Mancuso, Salvatore Mancuso and Massimiliano Fabio, will prepare a civil case calling into question the “Villa Sofia-Cervello” hospitals of Palermo for the assessment of civil liability and the assessment of the damage suffered by the family members of Benedetto Vinci. “The thesis of the co-responsibility of the health facility in the occurrence of the death of Mr. Benedetto Vinci – explain the defenders – has always been feared by the defense of the family members. Today, finally, even after many years, the preventive technical assessment has confirmed this evidence and unfortunately the occurrence of a tragedy that could have been avoided.”