Last updated on 1 April 2026
I was born on April 5, 1967, in Sorengo… do not worry, I will not tell you my entire life story; it was just to give you an indication of my age.
I have always been a person with a thousand interests who wanted to try everything and who became enthusiastic easily and with very little.
Professionally as well, I have had the opportunity to experiment and test myself in various professions and with different roles.
I began my professional career as an apprentice electrical installer, but already towards the end of the last year, I realized that it was not my path.
At nearly 18 years old, I had to attend a first aid course to obtain my driver’s license; motorcycles were my passion, and I could not wait to travel independently and speed up the Swiss passes.
A few hours after enrolling in the course, I was hit by a car while on my moped, and it was then that I realized that was the profession I wanted to pursue.
And so it was; at just 20 years old, I was already a professional rescuer. At that time, my colleague Filippo and I were the youngest professional rescuers in Switzerland.
My career advanced; I graduated as a professional rescuer and became a shift supervisor.
After a few years, the Cantonal Federation of Ambulance Services (FCTSA) hired me part-time as an instructor at the school for professional rescuers.
My interest in the new and the extreme led me to join what was then the Technical Rescue Group.
This was a group formed by professional rescuers and volunteers from the Lugano Green Cross, trained for recoveries in narrow and dangerous places (construction sites, mountains, caves, etc.) using specific equipment and techniques.
This new activity also led me to take up alpine disciplines such as climbing and ski mountaineering.
Later, given my love for dogs, I tried my hand at training search and rescue dogs, although only at an amateur level.
Despite my profession leading me to see accidents of all kinds, motorcycles were a passion I could not give up; they relaxed me and gave me a sense of freedom.
In fact, from the age of 18 until my hospitalization for Covid, I always owned motorcycles of all types and displacements.
I do not deny having had a few accidents, but always without serious injuries—mostly just bruises and abrasions.
And not wanting to miss out on anything, I attended a course with my colleagues from the Green Cross to obtain my “Open Water” diving certification; water has always been an environment where I felt at ease.
As a boy, until the age of 16, I actually swam competitively.
I would have continued with this profession until retirement if it had not been for a skiing accident one day.
An accident of which I remember nothing due to the head trauma; on that occasion, I injured a shoulder and the vertebrae at the lumbosacral level.
From that moment, my physical health began a downward phase; I often had back and shoulder pain, and the profession of a rescuer certainly did not help improve my physical condition.
At that time, there were no electric stretchers or mechanized devices to help us; everything was still done manually with arm strength, and my back suffered for it.
During that period, working had become a torment; I had constant back pain and dislocated my right shoulder on two occasions.
I underwent surgery on both shoulders, and subsequently, my L4, L5, and S1 vertebrae were fused.
For a few years, I had already been interested in information technology; it was a field that interested me greatly, also because it was the novelty of the moment—I am talking about the nineties.
Initially, I trained myself independently with books and many nights spent in front of the screen.
I still remember my first PC, an Athena x386 with 2 MB of RAM and a 60 MB hard disk with Microsoft Windows 3.1; it cost me an arm and a leg.
Excuse me, but I must go now for my physiotherapy session; in fact, I am still hospitalized in Novaggio. For the third time (it is now 2023), I am undergoing a month-long cycle of intense rehabilitation.
See you in about an hour!
I am back; where was I?
Now I remember—not an easy task, given that after Covid I often experience memory lapses.
The pain and my new interest in IT prompted me to change professions.
It was a gamble because I had no specific training; I was self-taught, and this did not work in my favor. However, at that time, I did not yet have a family, and taking risks was part of my nature, so I threw myself into this new adventure.
Initially, I went to work for a local company (thanks to the man who would later become my brother-in-law) before being hired by what was then TSI (Swiss Italian-language Television).
Anyone interested in my professional background can consult my online curriculum vitae at: https//m-achermann.com
In the meantime, I married Mirna, and between 2000 and 2002, we had two wonderful children, Aaron and Asia.
After a few years, I realized that without a degree, my future would be uncertain, and having a family, this condition troubled me greatly.
In 2006, I decided to challenge myself again and studied computer science for three years, obtaining my degree.
From there, I started as an IT specialist, then became a teacher, an apprenticeship inspector, and finally the vice-director of a professional vocational school.
I had been vice-director for two years when suddenly the Coronavirus arrived… that is what they called it initially.
Who would have ever predicted it would end like this…
Some images of how I used to be.
