By Dr. Massimo Gandolfini, the doctor
under whose care Bruno Cocchetti was placed
On the fourteenth of February, 1988 a student
from Brescia, Bruno Cocchetti, who was eleven and a half years old was
accidentally hit by a car. He received severe trauma to his face with an
immediate loss of consciousness. He was promptly rescued and taken to the
intensive care unit in the civil hospital of Brescia. When I visited him, I saw
right away that his condition was serious: a deep coma that needed artificial
respiration. The computed axial tomography was done immediately and others
tests some hours later. They showed severe brain damage with hemorrhages and
signs of endocrine hypertension. A surgical intervention would not have yielded
any benefit. After about six hours his clinical condition worsened further
becoming desperate due to damage to the brain stem. It was logical to expect an
inauspicious outcome within a short time. At that time, I was an assistant at
the neurosurgical clinic in the university of Brescia and unfortunately I had
seen similar cases. I wanted to simplify the problem. There were two possible
clinical outcomes: death or slow recovery of consciousness with serious
neurological and physical disabilities. In these exact terms, I explained this
to the parents and relatives of the boy. However, to my astonishment, the
following clinical development began to contradict my words. Within forty hours
the patient had started an unhoped for and unprecedented recovery that brought
him to complete life autonomy: no neurological focal loss remained and the
superior symbolic functions and psycho emotional life were perfectly
normalized. I immediately had the impression/sensation that from a scientific,
medical point of view something “exceptional” and “inexplicable” had happened.
It was not his survival that amazed me (modern reanimation techniques allow us
to save the life of these patients), rather it was the quality of perfect
healing reached in such a short interval (the technical term is the “quod
modum”of the “restitution ad integrum”). Therefore, I decided to carefully
analyze all the international literature on this subject from 1970 to 1990,
recruiting the involvement of other neurosurgeons and resuscitation specialists
in this ponderous work. The accurate and scrupulous research essential for a
serious and documented study brought us to this conclusion: in the clinical
cases we have previously seen and treated, our scientific knowledge does not
permit us to explain an outcome of total healing. There still remained some
“black hole”. Something “scientifically inexplicable” happened stated Dr.
Massimo Gandolfini, head physician and neurosurgeon, director of the
neuroscience department of Brescia Hospital, member of the ethical commission
of the association of physicians of the province of Brescia, and also
consultant neurosurgeon of the Holy Congregation for the Cause of the Saints at
the Holy See. The path to sainthood is long and winding. The Church, before
lifting someone to the honors of the altar, requires proof and imposes checks
and witnesses beyond any reasonable doubt. So it was for Father Giovanni
Piamarta. On the morning of the fourteenth of February 1988, the eve of the
feast of Saint Faustino and Giovita, patron Saints of the city of Brescia,
Bruno left home and walked towards the middle school of Sereno, a village very
close to his home. But, while he was crossing the street, a car hit him
throwing him far. His condition immediately appeared desperate. The medical
doctors of the emergency center transferred him to the resuscitation center
with a diagnosis that did not leave any hope: cranial trauma with multiple
injuries, deep coma and a state of shock. Near him, his parents were desperate -
crushed by the pain. They fervently wished to pray, but did not know which
Saint to pray to. An uncle Father Ettore Pelati, general bursar of the
congregation of Father Piamarta, asked to his friend Gandolfini to take care of
his nephew. “When I saw the boy, said the medical doctor and knew that the
prognosis was so serious, I answered the priest that only a miracle could save
this boy from death”. “I will ask to his parents and friends, Father Pelati
replied to beseech the intercession of Father Giovanni Piamarta and to start a
novena of prayers”. The prayer wound through the chapel of the Artigianelli
Institution where Father Piamarta is buried, the church of Bruno’s parish and
the chapel of the hospital. What medicine could not do, faith and prayers
raised to heaven and beseeching Father Piamarta’s intercession did. Sixty days
after the terrible accident, Bruno came back to school completely healed! This
miracle opened the doors to Father Giovanni Piamarta’s beatification and
canonization. In 1990 the Brescian Curia instructed the Diocesan process
(legally approved by the Congregation of the Causes of the Saints) that would
have recognized it officially. This happened when the medical council of the
department, on the twenty seventh of June 1996, declared with unanimity that
Bruno’s healing “was very fast, complete, durable and scientifically
inexplicable”. After a few months and several tests the Congregation concluded
that Bruno’s healing is to be considered “a miracle operated by God through the
intercession of the Venerable Giovanni Piamarta”. So Giovanni Piamarta was
proclaimed Blessed on the twelfth of October 1997 by John Paul II, who was also
loved by the young and would also in the future be beatified. On that Autumn
day among the five thousand people, gathered in Brescia to greet the newly
beatified, Bruno was also present to show gratitude and love to the one who
gave him his life back.
Traduzione a cura di Mary Levine e Matteo Toschi
