Dairy boss found crushed to death under 15,000 wheels of cheese after factory shelf collapsed on top of him in Italy
A DAIRY boss has been crushed to death by 15,000 wheels of cheese after a shelf collapsed on top of him at his factory.
Giacomo Chiapparini, 74, was found buried underneath his own produce at his warehouse in Italy‘s northern Lombardy region.
Thousands of wheels of a Parmesan-style hard cheese – weighing around 40kg each – battered the businessman on Sunday night.
A shelf supporting the hefty dairy products collapsed at around 9pm, triggering a deadly domino effect that brought down 15,000 wheels.
Giacomo had been working inside the factory in the small town of Romano di Lombardia near Bergamo at the time.
He is said to have been checking on the ripening wheels that were stored on a network of metal shelves that were up to 33ft tall.
Italian outlet Corriere della Sera reported that he was activating a robot which carries out the cleaning process of maturing cheese.
A 118-strong rescue team, made up of firefighters and paramedics, worked through the night to find the grandad.
They “had to move the cheeses and the shelves by hand” during the gruelling 12-hour mission to locate Giacomo.
The award-winning cheesemaker’s body was eventually found at around 9am the following morning, firefighter Antonio Dusi told AFP.
He leaves behind his beloved wife, two children and several grandchildren.
Italian cops have now launched an investigation into the freak accident and are trying to reconstruct Giacomo’s final moments.
The warehouse contained a total of 25,000 wheels of Grana Padano, a hard cheese which resembles Parmesan that is very popular in Italy.
Giacomo had worked in the industry his entire life, his daughter Mary previously said.
The dairy boss worked on his father’s farm as a sharecropper alongside his brother, before buying his own farm in 1977.