A sudden illness or, a more remote hypothesis, a breakdown in the vehicle, serious enough to cause the driver to lose control. Following more in-depth investigations by the Siderno Polstrada agents directed by Chief Inspector Giovanni Mariella, one of these two hypotheses is the cause of the terrible accident that occurred late Tuesday afternoon on the Ionian-Tirreno highway, which cost the lives of three people from Serra San Bruno. The terrifying impact between a bus of the “Federico” company and a Ford Focus station wagon with Salvatore Primerano, 37 years old, his wife Lucia Vellone, 28 and Domenico Massa, 44 years old on board, occurred a short distance from the Gioiosa Jonica junction. Salvatore and Lucia, parents of two children, died instantly, as did their neighbor and friend Domenico Massa shortly after being transported by helicopter and admitted to Catanzaro hospital.
According to what emerged from the investigations carried out by the Siderno Polstrada agents (the Siderno firefighters, the 118 health personnel, the carabinieri and some Anas teams also went to the site of the tragic accident), the three were returning from Messina where the woman, Lucia Vellone, had been accompanied by her husband for some medical checks in a health facility. The Serrese couple, with their friend Domenico Massa, before returning to Serra San Bruno via one of the internal provincial roads that wind from the Ionian coast towards the Serre Vibonesi, had decided to go and visit Primerano’s parents in Santa Caterina dello Jonio, in the Soverato area.
Shortly before leaving the Ionian-Tirreno road, through the Marina di Gioiosa Jonica junction, and taking State Road 106 towards Santa Caterina dello Jonio, there was a very violent head-on collision with the bus traveling in the opposite direction. The invasion of the lane where the bus was traveling by the Ford driven by Salvatore Primerano was so sudden that the bus driver did not, in practice, have time to try anything to avoid the frontal impact. The collision, therefore, was extremely violent, so much so that the entire front part of the car was reduced to a veritable mass of sheet metal. The damage also reported to the front of the bus was notable. In the scary clash the two spouses, literally crushed by the sheets of metal, died instantly. The passenger who was in the rear seats died, as mentioned, shortly after arriving at the Catanzaro hospital. The bus driver and some bus passengers who were sitting in the first seats were bruised, although not seriously, but in shock. The investigations of the Siderno Polstrada are coordinated by the deputy prosecutor of Locri, Rosamaria Pantano.