74-Year-Old Italian Man Dies After Being Crushed by Thousands of Cheese Wheels in Warehouse

Giacomo Chiapparini.Photo:Papini/ROPI via ZUMA Press

Papini/ROPI via ZUMA Press

Giacomo Chiapparini, a local producer of Grana Padano, a parmesan-style cheese, was inside his Bergamo warehouse on Sunday evening, when a 30-foot-high shelf holding his 15,000 cheese wheels gave way,NBC Newsreported.  Each wheel weighs about 44 lbs., per the outlet.

Chiapparini’s body was discovered on Monday morning after a search continued through the night.CNNreported that it took more than 11 hours to locate him under the cheese wheels.

Speaking with NBC News, Bortolo Ghislotti, a friend and neighbor of the victim, said Chiapparini and his son Tiziano, 50, went to the warehouse after a machine that cleans the cheese wheels sent an alarm signal.

“These machines clean and rotate the wheels, so when they find them even slightly out of place, they send a warning,” said Ghislotti. “It’s a common problem. So Giacomo and his son went there to adjust the wheels.”

The friend said Tiziano left the warehouse after the pair fixed the issue, leaving his father to restart the machine.

“Tiziano told me he heard a massive noise, he turned around and saw his father buried under thousands of cheese wheels,” Ghislotti told NBC News. “He knows that if he got out seconds later, he would be dead too.”

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His funeral is planned for Thursday.

source: people.com