Avalanche survivor

“We would have made it a few seconds earlier”

Karl Pall returns once again to the place where he survived a huge avalanche more than three decades ago.(Bild: Tom Neffe)

33 years ago, Styrian Karl Pall survived a huge avalanche that cost the lives of three other mountaineers. His story shows how seconds can influence fate - and how close life and death are.  

It was only a few weeks ago when Martin, Karl Pall's nephew, first spoke to his uncle about that fateful day 33 years ago. To that dramatic event in December 1991, when a huge avalanche buried four people near Pusterwald and three of them lost their lives. Among them was Martin's father Johannes.