Young men dead

Salzburg: Off-piste skier dies in avalanche

Rescue workers recovering the 20-year-old last Wednesday (left). A 33-year-old man lost his life in a wet avalanche on Tuesday (right).(Bild: ZOOM Tirol, Bergrettung St. Johann)

Sad news from Salzburg and Tyrol: a local skier was reported missing by his girlfriend on Tuesday in Pongau. On Wednesday, rescue workers were only able to recover the 33-year-old's body from under a wet avalanche. A week after theavalanche accident in Kirchberg, a 20-year-old man also succumbed to his serious injuries at the hospital in Innsbruck.

After the emergency services were alerted by the girlfriend of the missing 33-year-old from Pongau, mountain rescue, alpine police, volunteer firefighters, and mountain railway employees launched a search operation in the Gernkogel area on Tuesday. Based on the last use of the local man's ski pass, the search area was narrowed down to the Straßalmbahn area.

"Due to the tense avalanche situation, we decided not to enter the open terrain. We concentrated on the edge of the piste and adjacent areas. In doing so, we discovered three avalanche cones, which were checked by the three dog handlers and using avalanche transceivers," reports mountain rescue operations manager Martin Stifter. 

Cell phone tracking led rescue workers to the deceased
The police were able to locate the exact position of the victim using cell phone tracking. He was at an altitude of around 1,400 meters above sea level in wooded terrain with a gradient of around 40 degrees. On Tuesday, avalanche warning level four out of five was in effect in this area above the tree line. "We searched for the man on the wet snow avalanche using avalanche transceivers and were able to find him," says Stifter.

The wet snow avalanche occurred in a steep, avalanche-prone gully.(Bild: Bergrettung St. Johann)

The well-equipped off-piste skier is believed to have been fatally injured by the avalanche. As it was a steep, avalanche-prone gully, the body was not recovered until Wednesday morning. 

Doctors fight in vain to save his life
There was also a long period of anxiety surrounding the 20-year-old who was swept away by the snow masses for around 250 meters in Kirchberg in Tyrol last Wednesday and had been in intensive care with serious injuries ever since. Now there is sad certainty: he has succumbed to his injuries.

The young Austrian had been traveling with a companion of the same age in the Pengelstein area when he was swept away by an avalanche on a steep slope. It took around 20 minutes for his companion and several other freeriders to dig the 20-year-old out from a depth of around 2.10 meters.

The crew of the emergency helicopter had to resuscitate the buried man for around three minutes at the scene before he was flown to the hospital in Innsbruck. However, as the police have now announced, the doctors lost the fight to save the young local man's life. 

The scene was Obertauern: the powerful avalanche broke loose in the Plattenspitze area (2294 m).(Bild: Bergrettung Obertauern)

District alarm in Lungau
According to the Salzburg Mountain Rescue Service, an avalanche also occurred in Obertauern on Wednesday afternoon. Up to 150 rescue workers were deployed at the foot of the Plattenspitze. The massive avalanche cone was approximately 200 meters wide. Due to the terrain, it was possible that several athletes had been buried deep in several layers.

One person had observed the avalanche from the Hundskogelbahn cable car, but was unable to see whether anyone had been caught up in the snow masses. The eyewitness made an emergency call. Due to the massive size of the avalanche and the unclear situation, a district alarm was triggered in Lungau. However, at around 6 p.m., it became known that no people had been buried in the avalanche. Avalanches in Neukirchen, Hüttschlag, and Mühlbach/Hochkönig were also investigated by mountain rescuers.