Fulvio Filace, the 25-year-old Cnr trainee, graduating in Mechanical Engineering, is the second victim – after the researcher Maria Vittoria Prati – of the explosion of the experimental hybrid car on the Naples ring road on 24 June. The young man, who was in an induced coma, died this morning at the Cardarelli hospital. He had third-degree burns over 70% of his body and blocked bronchial tubes. It would have been a respiratory crisis that caused his death. In recent days, the 25-year-old had undergone two surgeries to replace necrotized tissue. But just when it seemed that his condition had stabilized, death came.
Mavi Prati’s husband
“We hoped to the end that Fulvio could be saved”: thus the professor Fabio Murena, husband of Maria Vittoria Prati, Mavi for friends, commented on the death of Fulvio Filace. The researcher was driving the car when the tragedy occurred, while Fulvio Filace sat next to her. Both had sustained severe burns over most of their bodies. “We express all our condolences to family and friends,” added the professor.
The expertise
In the meantime, the two investigations into the accident continue. An insider from the Cnr, which aims to clarify the reasons for that trip on the ring road and why Filace was also on board the hybrid Volkswagen Polo. The second from the Naples Public Prosecutor’s Office, which has given a mandate to the Carabinieri of the Ris of Rome to carry out a super expertise both on the exploded car – the Polo – and on the second hybrid car: a Fiat Punto seized from the “eProInn” of Fisciano, the company that carried out the experimental project. In recent days, both a Cnr executive and Gianfranco Rizzo, a former university professor at the head of eProInn, have been heard by the prosecutors.
The investigation
The investigation entrusted to the carabinieri must clarify several points. Starting with the contents of the cylinders placed inside the exploded car, which would form part of the emission control system installed at the Cnr. And again, whether the explosion came from the diesel to hybrid car conversion kit, made by eProInn. Finally, there is also an administrative strand in the investigation: the flows of regional and European public funding arriving at the companies that are part of the “Life-save” project and if the journey that cost the lives of Prati and Filace had been authorized.