Farewell to Giuseppe Giacopini, the Riva doctor who saved a diver – La Busa

Giuseppe Giacopini, a well-known specialist in the ENT department of the local hospital, passed away at the age of 84 in Riva. He was born in Pescantina, but his work had brought him to the shores of Garda.
He leaves his wife Silvana, his children Paola and Marco, five grandchildren and all his relatives. And especially the friends who loved him. The Funeral Ceremony will take place on Saturday 7 September at 10:30 am at the Arcipretale church of Riva del Garda.
Always available to those in need, invaluable in many areas, he had given his selfless professional contribution to social and sports associations, in particular he closely followed the activity of the Rivani Divers Group, intervening positively in emergency circumstances.
The most important one, the one that saved a diver from Vicenza, who had remained underwater for too long (read the full article). He was taken by helicopter by the Riva del Garda Fire Department, which had a small hyperbaric chamber. Doctor Giacopini, who also intervened as the Riva divers’ doctor, stopped those who wanted to continue with attempts at decompression. An expert colleague of his from the San Martino hospital, contacted by telephone, told him to take him immediately to Genoa where they had a more professional hyperbaric chamber, but it was essential that he remain “always compressed”, under penalty of death. At that point the extraordinary organization of the Fire Department kicked in. The hyperbaric chamber, with the patient inside, was loaded onto a Transit van hastily picked up from a shopkeeper. Along the Riva-Genoa stretch, the convoy found local Fire Departments at the motorway toll booths with other cylinders that were needed to replace those that were running low. Doctor Giacopini kept the patient under constant control inside the van. In the middle of the night, after a journey of over 300 kilometers, the diver reached San Martino where, after long treatments, he was saved.