Found by his family with a broken nose and cheekbones and cerebral edema. The medical examiners write of “traumatic injuries to the brain of the hospitalized patient

Bruno Modenese, the 45-year-old former fisherman from Pellestrina, who voluntarily entered psychiatry last Saturday 16 September and never left, would have died from serious brain injuries. After a few days, his family was informed of his death on Tuesday 19 September due to cerebral arrest, but none of the healthcare staff explained why he had a broken nose and cheekbones and cerebral edema.

The autopsy
The first results of the autopsy, carried out at the morgue of the Angelo hospital on Thursday 5th by the medical examiner Barbara Bonvicini and the maxillofacial surgeon Guido Bissolotti, confirm the presence of «multi-district lesions and, in particular, traumatic lesions on the arch zygomaticus and nasal pyramid, as well as traumatic lesions to the brain of the hospitalized patient” as the family’s lawyers, lawyers Augusto Palese, Renato Alberini and Gian Luca De Biasi, make known. The authorization should arrive shortly on Friday morning which will allow the family to organize the funeral for the last farewell to a man who was remembered a few days ago in a candlelight vigil on the island attended by almost a thousand people. The ceremony is scheduled for Wednesday 11 October.

The three suspects: two nurses and a doctor
For now, no one is saying anything, but the hypothesis that he was beaten, as the family claims, could prove true. To date, two nurses and a doctor from the Psychiatry department are under investigation. To understand the causes of death, however, we will have to wait for the results of all the tests which will gradually be filed within 90 days by the experts appointed by the Prosecutor’s Office and by prosecutor Daniela Moroni. Technically it seems that the death was caused by serious brain injuries, but there are still many questions that remain unanswered. Was he beaten? And by whom? And if so, could he have been saved? How much medicine did he have in his system when he entered and when he died? Who was in the department in those days? Why didn’t anyone speak?

Found by his family with a broken nose and cheekbones and cerebral edema. The medical examiners write about “traumatic injuries to the brain of the hospitalized patient”

06 OCTOBER 2023
UPDATED AT 5:32 PM
4 MINUTE READ

Bruno Modenese, the 45-year-old former fisherman from Pellestrina, who voluntarily entered psychiatry last Saturday 16 September and never left, would have died from serious brain injuries. After a few days, his family was informed of his death on Tuesday 19 September due to cerebral arrest, but none of the healthcare staff explained why he had a broken nose and cheekbones and cerebral edema.

The autopsy
The first results of the autopsy, carried out at the morgue of the Angelo hospital on Thursday 5th by the medical examiner Barbara Bonvicini and the maxillofacial surgeon Guido Bissolotti, confirm the presence of «multi-district lesions and, in particular, traumatic lesions on the arch zygomaticus and nasal pyramid, as well as traumatic lesions to the brain of the hospitalized patient” as the family’s lawyers, lawyers Augusto Palese, Renato Alberini and Gian Luca De Biasi, make known. The authorization should arrive shortly on Friday morning which will allow the family to organize the funeral for the last farewell to a man who was remembered a few days ago in a candlelight vigil on the island attended by almost a thousand people. The ceremony is scheduled for Wednesday 11 October.

The three suspects: two nurses and a doctor
For now, no one is saying anything, but the hypothesis that he was beaten, as the family claims, could prove true. To date, two nurses and a doctor from the Psychiatry department are under investigation. To understand the causes of death, however, we will have to wait for the results of all the tests which will gradually be filed within 90 days by the experts appointed by the Prosecutor’s Office and by prosecutor Daniela Moroni. Technically it seems that the death was caused by serious brain injuries, but there are still many questions that remain unanswered. Was he beaten? And by whom? And if so, could he have been saved? How much medicine did he have in his system when he entered and when he died? Who was in the department in those days? Why didn’t anyone speak?


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“That violent shot”
From what was reported by one of the two nurses under investigation, Modenese, once hospitalized, resisted with a violent outburst the doctors who wanted to give him a shot because he couldn’t stand needles. At that point the nurse says he was between him and the doctor, but without the use of violence. Afterwards, the patient would calm down and everything would proceed normally. How then to explain the sudden transfer to intensive care, which occurred the following day? So many questions that keep the family from sleeping with anguish. Since his admission to psychiatry, which occurred because he was in a state of confusion, his family did not see him again until Monday evening. “When I saw him reduced to that condition they told me that he might have fallen in the bathroom, but we have witnesses that he entered healthy and without a scratch”, reiterates his brother. In any case, the regulation does not provide for certain users to be left alone, particularly immediately after hospitalization.

Doctors and consultants
The autopsy began Thursday morning at 11 and concluded many hours later. Present were doctors Gianni Barbuti and Antonello Cirnelli, medical-legal consultants appointed by the victim’s family, and the medical-legal consultants of the suspects: doctors Nico Zaramella and Andrea Porzionate for the two nurses and doctor Alberto Raimondo for the doctor of the Psychiatry department. In this phase the Prosecutor’s Office also proceeded to collect the brain and fragments of organic and gastric tissues so that the necessary histological and toxicological investigations can subsequently be carried out which will always be carried out in the presence of all the consultants of the various parties, as required the principle of cross-examination, imposed in the context of non-repeatable technical assessments (ex art. 360 Code of Criminal Procedure). The consultants will have to respond to prosecutor Daniela Moroni who asked them to ascertain the causes of death.

Who was Bruno Modenese
Meanwhile, the family members are waiting to be able to perform the ceremony for Bruno Modenese. «We want justice and clarity», ask the brothers Emanuele and Marco, mother Marilena and father Sergio. Those days are impossible to forget. Modenese had sold his fishing boat a few years ago. He was very integrated into the social fabric of the island where a few thousand inhabitants live. Always kind and helpful, a devout religious man with his room and trouser pockets always full of holy cards, Modenese had only been hospitalized once 19 years ago due to a difficult moment. He couldn’t bear the mere sight of the needles and was terrified of the stings. Over the course of the last few years, he usually went to the Lido for check-ups every four months, to talk to a doctor who every now and then prescribed him some drops. According to the story of his brother Emanuele, who immediately followed every step of the case, Bruno was inserted into the island, but every now and then his head filled with thoughts and became confused, just like that September 16th.

On September 16, Bruno was out for dinner with the parents with whom he lived. He wasn’t in a good mood because he hadn’t slept for about ten days. His head was increasingly confused, so much so that his father, worried, had decided to call the hospital for his son’s safety. Initially Bruno didn’t want to know and so in addition to the ambulance the police also showed up at the house, as is the practice for forced hospitalization. However, when a sergeant that Bruno also knew arrived, the former fisherman was convinced that perhaps it was better to go to hospital. For this reason there is no longer any forced hospitalization. Modenese climbed into the water ambulance on his own two feet and was taken to the civil hospital. From this moment a nightmare begins for the family who are denied seeing him: first they are told that he is sleeping, then that he is intubated because he had breathing problems, then because he got worse and was taken to Intensive Care. His patience ends on Monday evening when, after constant insistence, his brother Emanuele demands to know how he is and finds him with a swollen face and a head injury.

The investigations and the lawyers
On 27 September the autopsy was prepared and two nurses were included in the list of suspects, joined a few days later by a doctor. In the meantime, the town organizes a well-attended torchlight procession. Thursday, the autopsy and the first results which seem to confirm the family’s fears. The consultancy, the family lawyers say, will continue with the collection of all the medical documentation relating to the case, always in the presence of the other appointed specialists, the psychiatrist Pierandrea Salvo and the neurosurgeon Fiorenzo Carta for the offended people, and the professor Rosa Joy for one of the two nurses. Bruno Modenese’s family is defended by lawyers Renato Alberini, Augusto Palese, Gian Luca De Biasi and Paolo Vianello. One of the nurses by the lawyer Luca Mandro, the other by Andrea Maria Bonaccorso and the doctor by Enrico Tonolo and Antonio Marchesini.