Dog saved lives

“Without ‘Amy’ we would have been powerless”

Dog handler Markus Stemberger from the mountain rescue team discovered the woman with dog "Amy" in a ditch.(Bild: Bergrettung Salzburg)

Severely injured and hypothermic, the rescue dog tracked down a female mountaineer who had been involved in an accident. "Without Amy, we would have been powerless," says mountain rescuer Markus Stemberger.

The search for an injured mountaineer in Wald im Pinzgau lasted for hours on Friday night. Dog handler Markus Stemberger from the mountain rescue team sent rescue dog "Amy" back into an impassable trench to search. "Amy" didn't come back straight away, but: "When I heard her barking, I knew that she had found the woman," reports Stemberger the day after in an interview with "Krone".

Stemberger is incredibly proud of his "Amy", and the seriously injured 34-year-old woman from Oberpinzgau can be incredibly grateful to the Austrian Pinscher dog. The experienced woman, who knows her way around, fell into a ditch in the Trattenbachtal valley on Thursday evening and was seriously injured. She was unable to get out of the ditch herself, so she made an emergency call. Almost 30 mountain rescuers set out and searched the difficult terrain.

The 34-year-old was only found shortly before midnight.(Bild: Bergrettung Neukirchen)

Sportswoman made an emergency call before the connection was lost
"The emergency call connection was interrupted," reports Albert Kogler, head of operations at Neukirchen Mountain Rescue. "The injured person could no longer be reached. We couldn't pinpoint the exact location of the accident." Until "Amy" and Stemberger found the woman unconscious shortly before midnight.

It was pitch black then. Stemberger is therefore convinced: "Without 'Amy', we would have been powerless." The already hypothermic athlete might not have survived the night. After being rescued and given first aid by the emergency doctor, she was taken to the hospital in Zell am See.

After a very short night, Stemberger and the dog were already on their way to Obertauern for the next exercise. "I am a mountain rescuer with heart and soul," laughs Stemberger and says modestly: "I am also proud of our trainers who made this possible."