A 26-year-old German snowboarder had to spend more than two hours in a snow hole in the Resterhöhe/Pass Thurn ski area near Mittersill (Salzburg) on Monday. The drunk man was missed by acquaintances. The mountain rescue team found him after a difficult search off-piste.
He could no longer move forward or backward: On Monday afternoon, the 26-year-old was stuck so deep in the snow outside the piste at Mittersill that he could no longer free himself. Because acquaintances missed him shortly before 5 p.m., they called in the mountain rescue team for help.
Snowboarder provided great effort
More than 40 mountain rescuers from Salzburg and Tyrol, as well as three dog handlers and three Alpine police officers were deployed in a large-scale search operation. The Pinzgau disaster advisor and employees of the mountain railway also took part with ski boxes and snow plows.
Unfavorable weather conditions
The search was made difficult not only by the steep slope, but especially by unfavorable weather conditions with heavy snowfall and in the dark. So drones or helicopters could not fly.
Tracked via WhatsApp location in the dark
The emergency services managed to reach the man on his mobile phone. But he couldn’t say where exactly it was stuck, nor could he locate it. The emergency services split up and searched in different directions. Ultimately, the Alpine police received the man’s location via WhatsApp.
The man was stuck in the open area between the Hangalm lift and the Hartkaser lift. When the mountain rescue team reached the German, he was already severely hypothermic. The man was stuck in the hole in the snow for more than two hours.
The mountain rescue team took him to the slopes on a mountain stretcher and transported him to the valley in a snow plow. His friends were already waiting for him there. According to mountain rescue, he was drunk and off-piste.
Source: Krone
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