Late Thursday afternoon, a spectacular helicopter rescue took place in the Rätikon, the border mountain range between Switzerland and Vorarlberg. A climber fell about 25 meters along the rope on the Drusenfluh and could not get any further. The alerted Swiss air rescue service “Rega” therefore had to resort to special measures.
Two sport climbers were on the partially overhanging ‘Intifada Route’ (difficulty level 8/8+) on the Schweizereck, an extension of the 2,827-metre-high Drusenfluh, when one of the two fell about 25 metres into the rope at around 5:30 p.m.
The man injured his ankle and could not climb any further. The duo alerted the operations center of the Swiss air rescue service “Rega”, which also deployed a mountain rescuer from the Swiss Alpine Club (SAC) to support the helicopter crew from Untervaz.
When they arrived at the scene after an initial reconnaissance flight, the Rega crew decided to extend the 90-metre rescue winch rope to a total of 135 metres using two extensions. This method is used when the length of the rescue hoist cable is not sufficient to reach the patient.
The SAC mountain rescuer could finally be brought directly to the patient on the wall using the extended winch cable. The crew of the “Rega” then flew both climbers one by one using the rescue winch to the intermediate landing site at the Schweizertor, the border between Graubünden and Vorarlberg.
After initial medical treatment, the patient was transported to a hospital for further treatment.
Source: Krone
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