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Climber on trial for leaving girlfriend to die on Austria's highest mountain
- The court in Innsbruck began proceedings on Thursday over the Grossglockner death, with Thomas P, identified by Austrian media, denying gross negligent manslaughter charges.
- As the more experienced climber, the man on trial is accused of planning errors including starting two hours late, lacking emergency bivouac gear, and allowing unsuitable snowboard soft boots, state prosecutors in Innsbruck say.
- Around 20:50 the couple became stuck and a helicopter passed overhead around 22:50, while webcam footage from foto-webcam.eu shows his torchlit descent before he called mountain police at 00:35 on 19 January.
- Der Standard warned of a possible paradigm shift for mountain sports, as the case raises when personal risk-taking crosses into criminal liability and sparks debate in mountain-climbing communities.
- Severe winds and subzero windchill halted night rescue attempts as strong winds up to 74km/h and temperatures of −8C with a −20 windchill prevented helicopter rescue, prosecutors say he left her at 02:00 and alerted rescuers only at 03:30 without using protective gear.
43 Articles
43 Articles
At the Großglockner, a young woman remains briefly below the summit and freezes to death, her experienced mountaineering partner continues to climb the challenging tour – in order to get help, as he says. Now he has to answer to court.
There is a witch hunt against him, said the mother of Kerstin Gurtner, who tragically died in January 2025 when her partner left her exhausted at an altitude of 4,000 meters to go get help.
Two reviewers, 15 witnesses, around 50 media representatives – at the Innsbruck Regional Court on Thursday, the death of the Salzburg alpinist Kerstin G. (33) on the Grossglockner. If the friend and rope partner bears a co-indeed, was it grossly negligent killing? A young couple, both excellent alpinists, in an extreme situation on the highest mountain in Austria, the Großglockner (3798 meters) – and in the end the woman is dead, frozen on the S…
More than a year after a 33-year-old woman died frozen on the highest mountain in Austria, her boyfriend is sentenced to death from serious ignorance. Kerstin G died of hypothermia during an alpineism tour of...
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