From NY Post: An experienced mountaineer has been charged with leaving his struggling girlfriend to freeze to death on Austria’s highest peak, with their fatal trek caught on a webcam.
The 33-year-old woman was found dead roughly 160 feet from the summit of Grossglockner mountain back in January after she and her 36-year-old boyfriend had set off on the hike, local outlet Huete reported.
The couple, who haven’t been identified publicly, were nearing the peak on Jan. 19 at about 2 a.m. when the girlfriend apparently started struggling and couldn’t go any further.
In Webcam images captured at the site, headlamps are seen ascending at the side of the mountain, shortly after 6 pm. Mere hours later, just one light is seen headed away.
The boyfriend, Thomas Plamberger, 39, an experienced climber, has allegedly set off to find help, leaving his less experienced girlfriend, Kerstin Gurtner, 33, behind. He allegedly left her unsheltered from the wind and exposed to freezing temperatures.
“The defendant left his girlfriend unprotected, exhausted, hypothermic, and disoriented about 50 meters [160 feet] below the summit cross of the Grossglockner. The woman froze to death,” prosecutors said Thursday.
Daily Mail reports:
As part of their probe investigators examined the couple’s mobile phones, sports watches and laptops for photographs the couple had taken as they made their way to the summit, and concluded Plamberger made several errors.
They highlighted how the couple were poorly equipped – Kerstin was wearing snowboard soft boots instead of proper hiking footwear – and officials say her boyfriend ‘turned away’ despite a helicopter flying low over the area.
[…]
‘The woman froze to death. Since the defendant, unlike his girlfriend, was already very experienced with alpine high-altitude tours and had planned the tour, he was to be considered the responsible guide of the tour.’
They added he did not take into account that his girlfriend was highly inexperienced and had never undertaken an alpine high-altitude tour of this length.
He was also accused of starting the tour around two hours later than scheduled, while not carrying any sufficient emergency equipment.
Even when he had left his partner to get help, he apparently did not bring her to a wind-protected place and did not use a bivouac sack or aluminium rescue blankets.
Plamberger’s lawyer, Kurt Jelinek, says his client denies the allegations and says he went to get help. He called it a “tragic, fateful accident.”
Meanwhile, the Innsbruck prosecutor’s office said: “At approximately 2am, the defendant left his girlfriend unprotected, exhausted, hypothermic, and disoriented about 50m below the summit cross of the Grossglockner.”
Plamberger has been charged with grossly negligent manslaughter.
Read more at NY Post
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