A man has been charged with manslaughter after his girlfriend froze to death on the Grossglockner, Austria's highest mountain.
Kerstin Gurtner, 33, was hiking up the 12,460ft mountain with her boyfriend and seasoned mountaineer, Thomas Plamberger, when temperatures dropped to -20C on 18 January 2024.
They were 150ft from the summit when Gurtner's legs gave out from exhaustion well into the night at 9:50pm.
After Plamberger left her on the mountain at around 2am to search for help, she died from extreme cold some six hours later.
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An initial helicopter mission deployed to find Gurtner's body was called off due to the strong winds at 7am.
Three hours after that, a rescue team was sent up the Grossglockner and came across her remains.
Taking to his now-deleted social media following her death, Bild reports that the boyfriend wrote: "I miss you so much. It hurts so incredibly much.
"Forever in my heart. Without you, time is meaningless."
Kerstin's boyfriend has since been charged with manslaughter by gross negligence, and faces up to three years in jail if found guilty.
Plamberger, however, has denied the allegations and instead called it a 'tragic, fateful accident', noting that he had left his partner 'by mutual agreement'.
Prosecutors said: “At approximately 2am, the defendant left his girlfriend unprotected, exhausted, hypothermic, and disoriented about 50 metres 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.
“Despite the woman’s inexperience – she had never undertaken an alpine high-altitude tour of this length, difficulty, and altitude.
“And despite the challenging winter conditions, the defendant undertook the alpine high-altitude tour to the Grossglockner via the Stüdlgrat with her in winter.”
The prosecutors outlined a number of alleged failures on the boyfriend's part that included not alerting emergency services as it got later into the night, and making no effort to signal a police helicopter that flew above them at 10.50pm.
They have accused him of only making one phone call to the mountain police at 12.35am before putting his device on silent and ignoring calls.
He is also accused of not moving his partner to a sheltered spot or using their bivouac bag or foil blanket to protect her. By not doing so, it left her 'defenceless, exhausted, hypothermic and disorientated'.
The boyfriend's trial will take place inside a courtroom in Innsbruck next February.
A tribute page described the Gurtner as a 'beloved daughter, sister, sister-in-law, godmother, granddaughter, partner and friend'.
Topics: World News, News
Anish Vij