Woman ‘left freezing to death’ on mountain by boyfriend identified
The woman who was allegedly left to die on a mountain by her boyfriend has been identified.
The man has gone on to be charged with manslaughter by gross negligence after the tragic incident, which took place at the beginning of this year.
He and his girlfriend, who has now been named as Kerstin Gurtner, were climbing the Grossglockner, Austria's highest mountain, in January.
The 39-year-old, an experienced climber, and Gurtner, 33, began to experience difficulties when they neared the summit of the 12,460-foot mountain.
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According to reports, she could no longer climb, and instead of calling the emergency services to aid them in their situation, her boyfriend reportedly left her on the mountain to try to get help on the ground.
Sadly, the Salzburg native 'froze to death' as she waited.
According to the public prosecutor's office, which was published by the German news channel, the man failed in his duty to ensure she was safe.
It read, per Heute: "At approximately 2:00 a.m., 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."
Gurtner was hypothermic when she was left on the mountain, instead of being moved where she could be more covered from the elements.
The man is also accused of making several errors as the more experienced climber, particularly in the fact that he chose to do the climb with an inexperienced climber.
Prosecutors went on to state that he began the climb two hours later than planned, and he 'did not anticipate an emergency during the tour planning' and didn't bring emergency equipment with him.
The courts allege he allowed Gurtner to wear 'unsuitable equipment for a high-alpine tour in mixed terrain', failed to call emergency services until nightfall, not turning back on the mountain when the weather was harsh, and not making distress signals when a police helicopter flew over at 10:50pm - despite his girlfriend collapsing from exhaustion at 8:50pm, 150 foot from the summit.
Instead, he waited hours until he sought help, which did not give his girlfriend the best possible chance to survive when he left her on the mountain.
The next morning, at 7am, a helicopter attempted to find the woman, but strong gusts meant it was too dangerous, and the search was called off.
Webcam footage of the mountain has since emerged, showing Gurtner’s torch die out as she lost her strength.
Three hours later, a rescue team took to the mountain on foot, but by the time they had reached Gurtner, she was dead.
Prosecutors went on to say the man left her ‘unprotected, exhausted, hypothermic, and disoriented about 50 metres below the summit cross of the Grossglockner’, leading her to freeze to death.
Calling him the ‘responsible guide of the tour’ as he had experience, while his girlfriend ‘had never undertaken an alpine high-altitude tour of this length, difficulty, and altitude’.
"The defendant failed to move his girlfriend to a sheltered spot to protect her from heat loss," prosecutors claimed, per Heute. "Before leaving his girlfriend at around 2:00 a.m., he neither used her bivouac sack nor the available emergency blankets to protect her from further cooling, nor did he remove her heavy backpack and splitboard."
His trial is set to take place in February, as his defence attorney ‘still assumes it was a tragic, fateful accident’.
He added to the KUIER: “My client is very sorry about how things turned out.”
Topics: Crime, World News
Britt Jones