A girl who froze to death after allegedly being abandoned by her boyfriend on Austria’s tallest mountain has been pictured for the primary time.
Kerstin Gurtner, 33, died within the pitch-black on 12,640ft Grossglockner on an evening when temperatures plunged to -20C in January last yr.
Thomas Plamberger, her 39-year-old boyfriend, now faces a charge of manslaughter by gross negligence.
Prosecutors say Plamberger left Gurtner ‘unprotected, exhausted, hypothermic and disoriented’ and that, as an experienced climber, he was the ‘responsible guide of the tour’.
Plamberger has denied the allegations, saying through his lawyer that he left her to get assist in what was a ‘tragic, fateful incident’.
A whole lot of tributes have poured in for Gurtner since her death, with people remembering the ‘wonderful’ woman.
The couple began climbing Grossglockner, within the nation’s central-west, on January 19, with prosecutors saying they set off two hours later than planned.
Harsh weather conditions, including wind speeds of as much as 46mph, would have made the -8°C temperature feel more like -20°C.
Chilling webcam footage of the mountain showed the climbers’ lights glowing at around 6pm.
The pair were stranded from around 8.50pm. Hours later, just one light might be seen moving away, with Plamberger leaving her at 2am.
Mountain rescue teams in helicopters found Gurtner dead at 10am, just 150ft below the summit.
They’d tried to descend earlier within the morning but weather conditions prevented them.
As a part of their probe, investigators trawled through the couple’s mobile phones, sport watches and laptops.
Examining photographs the couple had taken as they made their method to the summit, they concluded Plamberger made several errors.
He’s accused of not making enough effort to contact emergency services before nightfall and of not making a distress signal when a police helicopter flew overhead at 10.50pm.
Prosecutors also say the couple were poorly equipped – with Gurtner wearing snowboard soft boots as an alternative of proper mountain climbing footwear.
Additionally they argue he didn’t put her in a wind-sheltered place, use aluminum rescue blankets or a ‘bivvy bag’ – a waterproof-covered sleeping bag – to maintain her warm when he left her.
He can be accused of starting the tour around two hours later than scheduled, and never carrying the appropriate emergency equipment.
In an announcement Innsbruck prosecutor’s office said: ‘At roughly 2am, the defendant left his girlfriend unprotected, exhausted, hypothermic, and disoriented about 50 meters below the summit cross of the Grossglockner.
‘The lady froze to death. Because 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 didn’t properly consider that his girlfriend had never attempted an alpine high-altitude tour of this length.
In keeping with amateur mountaineers writing online, Grossglockner is a difficult ascent requiring ropes, crampons and ice axes.
The same old route forces climbers to cross a glacier – treacherous bodies of ice known for his or her hidden crevasses.
A funeral notice for Gurtner posted online last January said: ‘Our lives are in God’s hands; whether it is His will, then don’t grieve for me. But remember me with love.’
Plamberger’s trial is ready to start out in February. If convicted, he might be jailed for up to a few years.
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