A man has been charged with grossly negligent manslaughter after allegedly leaving his girlfriend alone on Austria’s tallest mountain, where she later died.
Thomas Plamberger, 36, was attempting to scale the peak of Grossglockner with his girlfriend Kerstin Gurtner, 33, on Jan. 19 when she began suffering from hypothermia and exhaustion, according to the Innsbruck public prosecutor’s office.
“At approximately 2:00 a.m., the defendant left his girlfriend unprotected, exhausted, hypothermic, and disoriented about 50 meters below the summit cross of the Grossglockner. The woman froze to death,” the prosecutor’s office said in a press release.
Plamberger was “already very experienced with alpine high-altitude tours and had planned the hour” and he was “regarded as the responsible guide of the tour,” according to the press release.
The Innsbruck public prosecutor’s office accused Plamberger of “several errors,” including “the woman’s inexperience” and “challenging winter conditions.”
“Despite the woman’s inexperience, who had never undertaken an alpine high-altitude tour of this length, difficulty and altitude, and despite the challenging winter conditions, the defendant undertook the alpine high-altitude tour to the Grossglockner via the Stüdlgrat with her in winter,” the prosecutors said.
Plamberger is also accused of starting the climb “two hours too late as part of the tour planning” and of not carrying “sufficient emergency bivouac equipment.”
“The defendant allowed his girlfriend to use a splitboard and snowboard soft boots, thus using equipment unsuitable for a high-alpine tour in mixed terrain,” the office added.
Another error the prosecutor’s office accuses Plamberger of is not turning back in time.
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“In view of the strong to stormy wind with wind speeds up to 74 km/h and the temperature of approximately minus 8 degrees, which, taking into account the ‘wind chill’ effect, leads to a feeling of cold of around minus 20 degrees, the defendant should have turned back at the latest at the so-called ‘breakfast spot,'” prosecutors added.
Plamberger failed to make an emergency call in time before nightfall and made no distress signals to the helicopter, according to the prosecutor’s office.
“Although the defendant and his girlfriend were effectively unable to continue their journey from approximately 8:50 p.m. onwards, he still did not make an emergency call and also did not give any distress signals when a police helicopter flew over at approximately 10:50 p.m.,” the press release added.
After several attempts by the Alpine Police to contact Plamberger, he finally called an officer at 12:35 a.m., prosecutors said.
“Although the content of the conversation remained unclear, the defendant did not contact the rescue services again. He had put his phone on silent and put it away, and therefore did not receive any further calls from the Alpine Police,” they added.
Plamberger is also accused of “failure to provide for his girlfriend” after he “failed to move his girlfriend to a sheltered spot to protect her from heat loss.”
“Before leaving his girlfriend at around 2:00 a.m., he neither used her bivouac sack nor the available emergency blankets to protect her from further cooling, nor did he remove her heavy backpack and splitboard,” prosecutors said.
The Innsbruck public prosecutor’s office said that a forensic medical report was obtained, and mobile phones, the sports watch logs of Gurtner and Plamberger, photographs, videos and an alpine-technical assessment were all evaluated as part of the investigation.
The offence of manslaughter through gross negligence is punishable by imprisonment of up to three years, according to the prosecutor’s office.
Plamberger submitted a written statement during the investigation proceedings, denying any wrongdoing.
He also paid tribute to his late girlfriend, Gurtner, in a since-deleted Instagram post, claiming that her death “hurts so incredibly much.”
“I miss you so much. It hurts so incredibly much. Forever in my heart. Without you, time is meaningless,” he wrote, per the Independent.
Plamberger is slated to go on trial in February at the Innsbruck Regional Court.
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