Riccardo Pastrello and Tobia De Eccher, who were killed in the accident on Christmas Eve at dawn in via della Libertà in Mestre, were great friends and had spent the evening together at Argo 16, not far from the place where their lives intersected. stops at 25. They had studied at the Franchetti high school in Mestre and shared a passion for basketball.
Tobia De Eccher was the son of Andrea, a well-known architect from Mestre, and lived in the centre, in Calle del Gambero. He had followed in his father’s footsteps, studying at the Academy of Architecture in Mendrisio, Switzerland. Various articles on the net tell of the projects that saw Tobia among the authors and that had been selected for competitions and awards.
The De Eccher family is closed in pain and asks for the utmost respect for the drama they have been experiencing since the dawn of Christmas Eve. On the phone, Andrea De Eccher doesn’t want to talk. The wound of the loss of the son is too great, the pain too devastating to manage.
Tobia died shortly after arriving at the Angelo’s emergency room: he had been rescued by Suem 118 personnel in desperate conditions.
«Tobia was a good boy, full of friends», recalls instead Gianfranco Tagliapietra, president of Alvisiana Basket Venezia with whom Tobia had played for a couple of years with the team in Serie D, before leaving the club to follow his university commitments far from Mestre and Venice. Previously, Tobia had played with other mainland basketball clubs.
Both Riccardo and Tobia, during their years of study at Franchetti, had participated in the “Reyer School Cup” project with the high school team. Riccardo Pastrello, on the other hand, died instantly. With his friend Tobias he had shared a thousand adventures.