Double Tragedy Strikes Naples: The Heartbreaking Loss of Sara Romano and Rita Granata

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May 8, 2024
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by Chiara Marasca

The two accidents occurred during the night between Saturday and Sunday. Sara Romano, 21 years old, died instantly, 27 year old Rita Granata passed away today after three days in hospital. On social media the pain and anger for two young lives broken

Sara Romano and Rita Granata were not even thirty years old. Twenty-one the former, and a great passion for dance and music, as shown by the many videos she posted on TikTok, twenty-seven the latter, a sportswoman in love with politics and her city. Both brunettes, sunny and Mediterranean, they found themselves united by a dramatic destiny: their young lives ended on the same night, in similar circumstances, a few hundred meters from each other. Two terrible road accidents in the western area of Naples, between the Fuorigrotta district and the Cavalleggeri district, just a few streets away, in the night between Saturday and Sunday. Sara died instantly, while Rita fought for three days, was hospitalized, and then passed away today.

And so, for a few hours, on social media, the images of her clean face and open smile have multiplied and are placed alongside the photos posted in recent days by those who loved Sara, and all are accompanied by messages of pain and anger. «You were a fighter who didn’t give concessions to anyone when she saw an abuse. A young woman, a sportswoman, with a gear in more: supportive and generous with everyone. It’s not fair!”, writes Alessandra Clemente, former councilor and now city councilor in Naples, about Rita Granata, who had shared with her the experience of the 2030 Committee, one of the different paths of civil and political commitment that had fascinated the 27-year-old in these last years. Even the former mayor Luigi de Magistris remembers her: «I was struck by her kindness, her competence despite her very young age, her sensitivity and depth of analysis, her passion for politics». Rita was a judoka, competition official, and on social media the Fijlkam Campania Judo Promozione e Sviluppo expresses affection and emotion: «You were a figure of value for our committee, present at all the events, always polite, respectful and professional».

It all happened in a handful of hours, in what was supposed to be a night of chatting and carefreeness but instead became an inferno of pain.

Around 4.30 Rita had just gotten off the taxi that was taking her home after an evening spent in a club with her friends. A car hit her a few steps from her home, in via Leopardi, in Fuorigrotta. Witnesses speak of a very violent impact, which threw her forward about thirty meters away. Her condition immediately appeared serious: she was transported by ambulance to the nearby San Paolo hospital and subsequently transferred to the Nocera hospital, where she was hospitalized with a reserved prognosis. There were two young people in the car, a 22-year-old passenger and a 24-year-old driving, who initially ran away, then returned to the scene after half an hour. The girl fought between life and death for three days, then she passed away today. The young man who hit her is under investigation in
state of freedom, is now accused of vehicular homicide.

Only two hours after the accident involving Rita, when it was already daylight, an SUV hit and killed Sara Romano, originally from the Mercato district, in the historic center of Naples. She was also in the car with three friends, returning from an evening at the disco. While they were traveling along via Leonardi Cattolica, the long road that leads from Bagnoli and the Coroglio premises to Fuorigrotta, the girls stopped the car and Sara, from the back seat, got out to get behind the wheel: that was the moment of the fatal impact . Driving the SUV was a 29-year-old father of two, who ran away and then turned himself in the following day, accompanied by his lawyer. Today the investigating judge validated his arrest by ordering his precautionary custody in prison: he is accused of vehicular homicide aggravated by the escape.

On Saturday 11 May, at 9pm, one week after the tragedy, Sara’s relatives and friends will gather for a torchlight procession in via Leonardi Cattolica, at number 62, where the accident occurred.

Now on social media there are those who point the finger at alcohol on Saturday evenings and speeding while driving, those who shout out their anger because “on that road we speed and there are no speed bumps to slow down even though we asked for them more times”, and those who call for “severe penalties and greater controls”. But the words fade in front of the beauty of the faces of Sara and Rita, who have become, with their smiles and their broken dreams, yet another symbol of a massacre which unfortunately is repeated cyclically, in this as in other cities, where road accidents remain the main cause of death among young people.

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May 8, 2024 (modified May 8, 2024 | 9:32 pm)