• Tragedy on a yacht in Croatia: Italian manager dies, two children are serious

Share

14 August 2019The two Italian children, a child of five and a girl of fourteen, sons of the Sicilian manager Eugenio Vinci, who died yesterday in a tragedy on a boat in the sea in Croatia, are still in a critical state and are in danger of death. This was reported this morning by doctors from the hospital in Split, where the two were admitted yesterday morning, transported urgently from the Dalmatian island of Hvar with a helicopter of the Croatian air force. Both children have compromised the functions of almost all vital organs and are in intensive care connected to an artificial respirator. "The two minors are in confidential prognosis and it is not possible to say how long the intensive therapy could last," Branka Polic, head of the pediatric intensive care unit at the hospital in Split told the Croatian press.

Doctors have also confirmed that food poisoning can almost certainly be ruled out, as the press had suggested at first. "A high level of carboxyhemoglobin has been detected in the blood of the two children, indicating a carbon monoxide poisoning," explained Polic, stating that it is up to the police to identify his source.

The 46-year-old mother of the two children, also intoxicated, is in stable condition and is recovering in the hospital, while the other two Italians, including the mayor of Sant'Agata di Militello, former senator Bruno Mancuso and friend of the manager died, showed much milder intoxication symptoms, and was discharged yesterday evening.

Today an autopsy will be performed on the body of Vinci and forensic investigations have been carried out on the boat, a sailing gulet rented by the two Italian families for holidays in Croatia. The most reliable hypothesis so far indicates the exhaust gas coming from the toilet or from the air conditioner of the boat as the source of the poisoning. According to the Croatian press Vinci would have fainted in the boat bathroom and would have hit his head in the fall.