A doctor 24h/24

Carlo Santucci, Roman, 35 years old. A man like many who until recently had a precarious job. Graduated in medicine, until the end of 2019 he served in ambulances and worked as a first aid teacher.

Last August, Carlo was the protagonist of an experience that changed his life. He was on vacation in the Austrian mountains when he was confronted by a woman in cardiac arrest on a train. For 40 long and tiring minutes he practiced heart massage until the helicopter rescue arrived, allowing her to continue living without compromising her vital organs.

For this action he received from the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella the appointment of Knight of the Order of Merit of the Republic. He comments: "I don't feel like a hero at all, on the contrary it's an attribution that embarrasses me. I think I only did what needed to be done. What happened on that train was indeed something extraordinary, but my behavior was absolutely ordinary; I'm sure any doctor in my shoes would have done exactly the same thing."

When asked what remains to him from such an experience, in addition to the friendship he then formed with Letizia, the woman he saved, he replies: "I have an ever-growing love for my profession: in our profession, which then it is a mission, we must always recognize something of ourselves in the other and therefore the fact of knowing that a child could lose a mother has charged me and gave me great energy ». Carlo today is a doctor who, like many others, spends himself on doing his job well.

Roberto Lerda
NP may 2020