A seriously injured hiker from Baden-Württemberg was rescued in the Tyrolean mountains after a night in the snow thanks to an extensive search operation. The man fell and was only found a day later in the snow at an altitude of around 2,200 meters, Austrian police reported. “The fact that the mountaineer survived the night under these conditions is nothing short of a miracle for everyone involved,” the mountain rescuers wrote on Facebook.
According to police, the man comes from Ettlingen. He went on a hike alone on Tuesday morning in Bach near the Bavarian border. After he didn’t return until the evening, the landlord of his holiday accommodation alerted the emergency services. Police officers, firefighters and mountain rescuers with search dogs and drones responded.
Bad weather makes the search difficult
The search had to be interrupted at night, as the police reported. Bad weather hampered the operation. When the fog temporarily cleared, a helicopter was able to drop several teams into the search area on Wednesday morning.
The seriously injured man was found near a mountain saddle in a snowfield. The investigators assume that the hiker fell over a very steep and rocky mountain side in the area of the 2,388 meter high jet head. The accident site is near the community of Holzgau.
According to the air rescue company ARA, it was around zero degrees there at night. “There must be guardian angels, otherwise there is no explanation for surviving a night outdoors with such injuries in these temperatures and snowfall,” the air rescuers wrote.
The man was responsive, but he could not remember what happened to the accident, according to police. He was flown by helicopter to a clinic in Murnau, Bavaria.
