Dramatic accident on the mountain ridges of Spitzkoepfe.
A gendarme from the Hohrod high mountain platoon died Monday morning during a training mission in Haut-Rhin, in the Vosges massif, Colmar public prosecutor Jean Richert said on Monday.
The soldier “died during a mountain exercise in the town of Metzeral following the loosening of part of the wall which led to his fall,” explained the prosecutor.
He was participating in this training with three other colleagues, and had just been dropped off by helicopter in this rocky corridor.
“Swept away by a landslide, which occurred in circumstances as yet undetermined, the soldier was found lifeless shortly after the accident,” indicates a press release from the national gendarmerie.
Died instantly
An entire section of the corridor broke away, dragging the gendarme with him, according to an officer from the high mountain gendarmerie platoons, contacted by France Bleu.
The landslide could have been caused by freezing and thawing, which is frequent in this location.
The non-commissioned officer, aged 43 and father of a child, died instantly.
The man had been decorated for an intervention in the Vosges massif when skiers were swept away by an avalanche at the beginning of 2021, according to our DNA colleagues.
Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin expressed his “great sadness” and conveyed his “thoughts for his family and his comrades” in a message posted on the social network X (formerly Twitter).
It is with great sadness that we learned of the death this morning of a gendarme from the Hohrod high mountain gendarmerie platoon, as part of a mountain rescue exercise in the Vosges massif.
Thoughts for his family and comrades.
— Gérald DARMANIN (@GDarmanin) January 29, 2024
The judicial investigation was opened and entrusted to the Colmar research brigade.
A psychological unit was set up to support the soldier's relatives and his colleagues during this painful episode.