Thunderstorms over the Dachstein: the injured endured the night on a narrow ledge

There wasn’t much time left. 20 minutes maybe, half an hour at most. Then the pitch-black clouds would also envelop the summit. And they would not only bring bad visibility, but also rain, lightning and thunder. The 31-year-old mountaineer, who was still standing at 2220 meters above sea level late on Sunday evening, knew about the dangers that threatened him on the Niederen Ochsenkogel.

From the Gjaidalm on the Dachstein plateau, where the German works as a waiter, he set out for an after-work lap. And he probably would have gotten back there unscathed if his feet hadn’t been torn off trying to get across the arduous karst terrain as quickly as possible. The 31-year-old fell after a few meters, fell over a gully and remained on a narrow ledge after 20 meters. Just in time. “Only a few centimeters were missing. Then he would have fallen to the foot of the wall,” says Dieter Eder, local manager of the Hallstatt Mountain Rescue Service.

Waiting in the storm

It was Eder who coordinated a complicated rescue operation in the hours that followed. The emergency call from the 31-year-old landed at 8:47 p.m. with the mountain rescue service. At this time the thunderstorm had already hit the Dachstein. The German, who had injured his ankle badly, had to endure it. He could no longer walk a meter on his own. Moritz Schilcher, landlord of the Wiesberghaus, who had actually already been on his way down into the valley, turned around and was one of the first to climb up to the injured person with a drill in his backpack. “We had to drill several stands in order to be able to heave it back up from the grass band,” says Eder. The pilot of the C14 rescue helicopter was temporarily waiting in the Echerntal near Hallstatt in order to be able to take advantage of every possible weather window.

At 1:24 a.m., a rescue team consisting of eleven mountain rescuers, paramedics and a mountain guide finally began to set up a rope railing at the accident site. Two hours later, they were able to transport the 31-year-old to the summit area in a vacuum mattress.

End of mission: 6.45 a.m

In the meantime, the remaining clouds had cleared and the rescue helicopter, equipped with a night vision device, was able to take off. At four o’clock in the morning, the helicopter took off from Niederen Ochsenkogel with the seriously injured man in the direction of Bad Ischl. There the alpinist receives medical care in the hospital. The mountain rescuers finally reached the Echerntal at 6.45 a.m.