• The body of the French hiker Simon Gautier has been recovered. Controversy over delays in rescue operations
  • The missing French tourist found dead in a ravine

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19 August 2019It is "unsustainable" the delay of Italy in geolocation systems in the territory, envisaged as mandatory by European legislation, which requires all member states to guarantee the location of whoever calls emergency numbers to ask for help. This, in a nutshell, is the complaint of the national president of the Italian Society of System (SIS) 118 Mario Balzanelli, regarding the story of the hiker Simon Gautier, who died in Cilento after the telephone call to 118, later found dead in a cliff. A case - according to Balzanelli that "makes clear the absurd, unsustainable evidence according to which in Italy the 118 Operational Centers are still without the geolocation system of emergency calls, although explicitly provided for by the decree of the Ministry of Economic Development of 12 November 2009 ".

"In Italy, however - Balzanelli still complains - the 'Advanced mobile location' technological system (Aml) is not yet available, thanks to which, even in the absence of an internet network, a sms message immediately starts from the smartphone of those requesting rescue. 112 which communicates the GPS coordinates corresponding exactly to the point where the victim is, "he says. In this regard, he cites" Jérôme Pâris, director of the European Emergency Number Association (Eeena) "according to which" the ML should already be active in Italy "given that" it has already received European public money for a first test phase in 2016/2017 ".

And again, explains Balzanelli: "although Europe has sanctioned, in the context of continental legislation, that the single emergency number 112 is in parallel with the national emergency numbers and not at all to replace them, the Italian model implemented by 112 , instead, precisely because it is irrationally 'substitute' for the other national emergency numbers, it has in fact heavily slowed down, if not paralyzed - denounces - the implementation of geolocation technology on the Italian territory ".

"Ten out of 19 countries in Europe - the president of the SIS 118 reports - have, in this regard, starting from France, also to gain time on the activation process, realized the model, envisaged by law at European level, of 112 which joins to existing emergency numbers, a model that is certainly more sustainable in terms of costs and ensures much faster operational responses, while Italy, as the story of Simon Gautier dramatically highlights, must nonetheless ensure that any individual is in imminent danger to lose the life of being able to count on the fastest and most effective rescue system possible Therefore it is necessary - he maintains - to provide with absolute speed all the operational centers of the various bodies of the national Emergency, starting from those of 118, of a modern and effective caller geolocation system, activating, in synergy, the single emergency number throughout the national territory ".