Five-year-old Eitan Biran, the Israeli boy who was the sole survivor of the May 23 cable car disaster in Italy that killed 14 people, including his parents, younger brother, and great grandparents, does not remember the incident and still does not know that his family members are dead, Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported on Tuesday.
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The child, the report added, was released from intensive care after doctors concluded his life was no longer in danger and that he was not suffering from any neurological or internal damage.
According to Corriere della Sera, Biran's aunt and grandmother, together with hospital psychologists, have decided it was still too early to tell the child what happened to his family.
Amit Biran, Eitan's father, reportedly protected his son in his final seconds during the tragic accident, likely saving his life.
On Monday it was reported that Biran had seen "significant improvement" over the weekend, had even started eating on his own, but only soft food, and was speaking with his aunt.
The three suspects in the cable car disaster were allowed to leave prison Sunday after a judge indicated that most of the blame fell on a service technician who intentionally disabled the car's emergency brake because it kept locking spontaneously.
Judge Donatella Banci Buonamici said there wasn't sufficient evidence suggesting the owner of the Mottarone cable car company, Luigi Nerini, or the maintenance chief, Enrico Perocchio, knew the technician had deactivated the brake on several occasions even before the May 23 disaster.
After evaluating the prosecutors' case and their request for the continued detention of the three, Buonamici ordered those two freed while allowing the technician, Gabriele Tadini, to leave under house arrest. The three men left the Verbania prison early Sunday, accompanied by their lawyers.
The tragedy occurred when the lead cable of the Mottarone funicular overlooking Lake Maggiore in northern Italy snapped and the emergency brake failed to prevent the cable car from reeling backward down the support line. The cable car pulled off the line entirely when it hit a support pylon, crashed to the ground and then rolled down the mountain until it was stopped by a stand of trees.
It is not known why the cable snapped.
The Italian region of Piedmont observed a minute of silence at noon Sunday, and flags were flying at half-staff to mark the moment one week ago when the disaster struck.
Tadini admitted during questioning that he had left a fork-shaped bracket on the cable car's emergency brake to disable it because it kept locking on its own while the car was in service, said his lawyer Marcello Perillo.
Speaking to reporters outside the Verbania prison, Perillo said Tadini never would have left the bracket in place if he thought the lead cable would snap, as it did.
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