SOLE SURVIVOR

Little Eitan became an instant orphan after a horror cable car crash on a northern Italian mountainside

- DENNIS CAVERNELIS

IT WAS supposed to be a fun outing in one of Italy’s most picturesque areas. The cable-car station had only recently opened after months of being closed because of the pandemic and the family, like dozens of others, queued up to wait their turn on the car that would take them to the top of the mountain.

A small amusement park, hiking trails, and mountain-bike paths were all perched on top of the hill so there was plenty for Eitan Biran (5), his little brother Tom (2), parents Amit Biran and Tal Peleg-Biran, and great-grandparents Yitzhak and Barbara Konisky Cohen, to do.

Yitzhak (81) and Barbara (71) were visiting the family, who lived in Fabia near Milan, from Tel Aviv, Israel, to escape the deadly conflict between Israel and Hamas.

“Rockets were falling in Israel and they thought, ‘What could happen in Italy?’” Amit’s sister, Aya Biran, says.

Those words echo hollow now. In a day of horror dubbed “September 11 in Stresa” by the mayor of the town, 14 people lost their lives when the cable car plunged down the mountainside.

Only Eitan survived. For days he lay unconscious in hospital, unaware of the nightmare he had survived – and the life-changing consequences of a tragedy that made him an instant orphan.

Eitan lost every member of his family that joined him on that ill-fated cablecar ride.

His aunt, Aya, has kept a constant vigil by his bedside after he was put in a medically induced coma. Both his legs were broken and he had injuries to his skull and abdomen but he didn’t suffer brain or spinal injuries – probably due to his father’s final act of bravery.

“For him to have survived the terrible impact, it is likely Eitan’s father, who was of robust build, wrapped his son in a life-saving hug,” his doctor told Italian newspaper la Repubblica.