Translated automatically by AI from the Italian original.
Sabrina Gigliotti, a mother of two from Ostia, died at San Camillo hospital after four weeks of pain. Relatives allege diagnostic delays and negligence.
by the Editorial Staff
29 October 2026
ROME – What began as a skin lesion mistaken for a simple insect bite turned into a four-week ordeal of excruciating pain and repeated hospital visits, ending in a tragic death from multiple organ failure in intensive care. This is the heartbreaking story of Sabrina Gigliotti, a 39-year-old from Ostia and mother of two young children, who died on 25 October 2026 at Rome’s San Camillo hospital.
The Rome Public Prosecutor’s Office has opened an investigation into manslaughter against persons unknown, ordering the immediate seizure of her medical records and an autopsy.
The four-week ordeal and repeated visits to the emergency room
The nightmare began in mid-September 2026, when Gigliotti noticed a skin alteration on her right thigh accompanied by severe itching. An initial medical assessment attributed it to a simple insect bite. In the following days, however, she developed joint pain, abdominal burning and difficulty moving.
- 26 September: First visit to the emergency room at Giovan Battista Grassi hospital in Ostia for swelling and pain at the wound site. She was discharged with a diagnosis of an inflamed insect bite and prescribed antibiotics.
- Early October: Gigliotti went to Celio Military Polyclinic for local dressings every other day. According to her family, no further diagnostic tests were ordered despite her worsening neurological symptoms.
- 18 October: She returned to Grassi hospital in Ostia on crutches. Discharge diagnosis: lower back pain, with a recommendation for an outpatient MRI scan.
- 21–25 October: Final clinical collapse. She was rushed to hospital under Italy’s fast-track procedure for domestic and gender-based violence (Codice Rosso) first to Spallanzani and then to San Camillo with a diagnosis of severe sepsis and multiple organ failure. On 25 October, her heart stopped beating.
The family’s formal complaint and the brown recluse spider theory
Following a criminal complaint filed by the victim’s siblings with the Carabinieri in Casal Palocco, the investigation will seek to determine whether there were any professional failings, delays or underestimations of her clinical condition by the medical facilities consulted.
“The forensic medical assessment and a thorough analysis of the seized medical records will be crucial to shed full and definitive light on the causes of death and any negligence.”
— Pablo De Luca, lawyer for the Gigliotti family
Investigators are also examining the possibility that the initial lesion was caused by a bite from a brown recluse spider (Loxosceles rufescens), whose venom or a subsequent untreated bacterial superinfection may have triggered the septic shock. The autopsy and toxicology tests ordered by the magistrate will determine the exact nature of the condition that cut short the young mother’s life.
