Man accused of 'leaving girlfriend to freeze to death' on mountain allegedly abandoned ex in same place

A climber who allegedly left his girlfriend to die at the top of a mountain has now been accused of leaving his ex on the same mountain.

Thomas Plamberger, 39, is currently in court after he was accused of leaving his girlfriend, Kerstin Gurtner, 33, 150ft below the Grossglockner mountain summit in January 2025.

Authorities found that Gurtner was not an experienced climber like Plamberger, and after she began to struggle and become unresponsive, Plamberger said he left to find help.

Prosecutors argue Kerstin was not sufficiently protected from the elements, with freezing temperatures of -8C on the mountain and a windchill temperature of -20C.

By the time rescuers found her the following morning, she was dead.

He has since been charged with gross negligent manslaughter, to which he has pleaded not guilty.

The trial in Innsbruck saw Plamberger claim Kerstin shouted for him to ‘go, now go!' after he stayed with her for an hour and a half.

A webcam showed the couple's lights on the mountain (foto-webcam.eu)

However, Judge Norbert Hofer called his story inconsistent.

Plamberger is accused of making a series of mistakes that led to her death, such as allegedly waiting hours to call for help, not trying to flag down an alpine police helicopter that flew over them, and not answering his phone when emergency services tried to contact him.

His legal team insists Plamberger and Gurtner were not in trouble when the helicopter passed over them around 10.30pm, and that he didn't notice authorities were trying to contact him because he didn't feel his phone vibrate.

But one of the most shocking things to come out of the trial was the allegation that this wasn’t the first time he had left a girlfriend on the mountain.

The Innsbruck prosecutor’s office revealed he had left an ex there following a 'heated argument with her on the Grossglockner in winter'.

Prosecutors say he left her alone on the mountain in pitch darkness after she complained about the difficulty of the climb.

Kerstin died on 19 January 2025 after climbing mountain with her boyfriend (Kerstin Gurtner Memorial)

Plamberger told the court he and Gurtner had been seeing each other for a year and had even planned on moving in together.

He said they’d often hike together, stating he had no ‘specific’ survival skills despite his ‘self-taught’ skills from time spent in the Austrian military.

Through his lawyer, Kurt Jelinek, Plamberger called the incident a ‘tragic, fateful accident'.

In a statement by the Innsbruck prosecutor's office, announcing the charge, they said: “At approximately 2am on January 19, the defendant left his girlfriend unprotected, exhausted, hypothermic, and disoriented about 50 meters below the summit cross of the Grossglockner.

“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.”