A Perth bodybuilder who collapsed in a gym shower and spent 15 hours unconscious on the floor without anyone noticing is in an induced coma with potential brain injuries — and his family want answers.
Police were forced to break down a door at the suburban gym to rescue Giuliano Pirone, 33, who was found lying in the shower cubicle with the water still running about 10:30pm last Tuesday.
They had to use the signal from his phone to locate him after his mother Daniela Pirone reported him missing that afternoon when he failed to arrive home from work.
Ms Pirone told Nadia Mitsopoulos on ABC Radio Perth her son was in the habit of going to the gym about 5am before heading to his building supervisor job.
She said she raised the alarm when he wasn’t home from work by 3pm.
“I rang him, messaged him, nothing,” she said.
“His dad rang him, nothing, which is very unusual.
“He will always pick up the phone for us or ring back straight away.
She said she started to panic.
“We rang his ex-wife, and we rang his friends,” she said.
“No-one had heard from him.”
Police were able to locate Mr Pirone using his phone signal about 10:30pm.
They found him in the gym in Perth’s northern suburbs and had to break down the bathroom door to get him.
“All I know from that is that the police had to barge in, the shower was running, cold water, and … he was collapsed, and they thought he was dead,” Ms Pirone said.
“They did CPR, and he came conscious pretty fast.
“The ambulance arrived within five minutes and then they got him straight to Joondalup hospital.”
Mr Pirone has since been in an induced coma.
Doctors have told his family they thought his blood sugar levels became extremely low, his blood pressure dropped and he may have had some kind of seizure.
“This week they’ll send him for an MRI and that’ll determine his brain function,” Ms Pirone said.
“All his other organs are working fine. He can breathe on his own, and he can open his eyes here and there. But the doctors are worried.”
Daniela Pirone and Rosa Ostapenko have raised concerns about the incident. (ABC News: Nadia Mitsopoulos)
Concerns about gym staffing
Mr Pirone’s family want to know how he could have been in the shower so long without any staff noticing he was there.
The 24-hour gym in Wanneroo is open but not staffed round the clock but Ms Pirone asked why no-one noticed that it had been hours since her son checked in or that his car had sat in the car park all day.
“My beautiful son was alone on that floor, collapsed, smashed his head for about 15 hours and no-one noticed anything,” she said.
“His car was parked right at the front of the gym because when he checked in, it was 4.55am.
“The showers are 20 metres away from reception and no-one noticed anything. Don’t the showers get cleaned? I’m just dumbfounded.”
The gym’s website states that staff are present for several hours in the morning and late afternoon only.
Police have accessed CCTV footage from the gym which showed Mr Pirone in the gym and entering the showers.
“You see him not feeling too good on the treadmill,” Ms Pirone said of the footage.
“He bumps into other machines. He staggers to the showers, holding his stomach, not feeling well.
“[He] went in there and must have just locked himself in, felt hot, turned the cold water on and bang, he collapsed.”
Call for more checks
Ms Pirone said she believed gyms should be staffed and checks of places like bathrooms and showers conducted every hour to prevent what happened to her son.
She said duress alarms could be installed so people could call for help.
Her daughter Rosa Ostapenko said the gym should also be checking patrons who checked in also checked out within a reasonable amount of time.
“I think they should implement a check-in, check-out system where if they’ve been at the gym longer than three hours, there must be an alert of some sort, because it’s very rare that someone goes to the gym for more than three hours,” Ms Ostapenko said.
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In a statement, the gym’s management staff offered their “deepest sympathies to Giuliano’s family during this difficult time”.
“Our thoughts are with them and we pray for a healthy recovery. We have been in contact with those close to Giuliano and we will continue to engage with the family to provide whatever support we can,” the statement said.
“Since we became aware of the incident, we have provided, and continue to provide all necessary access and information to emergency services to assist them in their efforts.
“As a 24-hour gym facility, we remain committed to maintaining a safe, secure and accessible environment for all our members.”
In a statement, WA police said there was no criminal investigation into the circumstances Mr Pirone was found in.
“The police response to this incident was a welfare check, so was treated in line with a missing person investigation,” the spokesperson said.
“We have however collected CCTV from the gym, and this is a routine process we go through to determine what caused a person to be lost, stranded or found in distress, in case similar incidents occur in the future.
“A criminal investigation would only be conducted if there was evidence of a law being breached.”
Ms Pirone said her family was focused on her son’s recovery.
“He’s my son. I can’t comprehend life without him. I just can’t,” Ms Pirone said.