As of: February 27, 2024, 5:19 a.m
By: Sebastian Grauvogl
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Ready to take off: dog handlers and air rescuers from the Schliersee mountain rescue service with the crew of the ADAC rescue helicopter Christoph 1. © Bergwacht Schliersee
Avalanche operations on the Rotwand: Two snowshoe hikers from Oldenburg triggered a snow slab there on Saturday afternoon.
Poor cell phone reception made the search difficult.
Spitzingsee
- As the snow slab rushed down the slope on the south side of Rotwand, Lenz Haberle was sitting in the office down in Schliersee.
And the later operations manager of the Schliersee mountain rescue service was supposed to be able to process a few more emails before he even found out about the potential avalanche accident, because: Due to poor cell phone reception, the emergency call from the son of the snowshoe hiker who was swept away by the masses of snow took an unwanted detour.
Emergency call from son (23) lands in Innsbruck
As Haberle reports, the 23-year-old from Oldenburg's cell phone was dialed into the Austrian network at the time.
The 112 therefore initially led to the Innsbruck control center.
Despite the poor connection, the dispatcher there tried to “pin” the scene of the accident as accurately as possible.
But because based on his son's descriptions he had to assume that the avalanche had occurred on the north side of the Rotwand, he informed the Leitzachtal mountain rescue service in Bayrischzell that was responsible for it.
They tried to call the young man back, but they couldn't get through to him.
Nevertheless, thanks to his local knowledge, the colleague managed to determine the location on the (ultimately correct) south side of the mountain range.
And that's how the Schliersee mountain rescue team came into play, explains Haberle.
Location: the south side of the Rotwand, where several slabs of snow came off.
© Bergwacht Schliersee
They were alerted around 1:30 p.m. - and had to assume an avalanche accident with buried people.
Haberle therefore requested the ADAC rescue helicopter Christoph 1 and sent an air rescuer and a dog handler from the Schlierseer Bergwacht to the handover point at the drag lifts in Valepp.
At the same time, the medical operations management team with Quirin Loher and state doctor Dr.
Florian Meier on the way.
Dog handler Florian Köck managed to spot several snow slabs on the south side of the Rotwand from the helicopter.
Apparently the 50 centimeter deep fresh snow had broken loose in some of the rocky gullies and slid towards the road underneath to the Rotwandhaus.
Also read: Mountain rescue service also called for an avalanche on Taubenstein in 2018
Call back from mother (51) explains everything
But since there was no sign of any possible buried victims and attempts to call were still unsuccessful, the Edelweiss police helicopter arrived with an air rescuer and dog handler Angela Köck.
The technical team from the Hausham mountain rescue service including a drone also set off.
Then, however, a call finally came from the person they were looking for: The Oldenburg man's 51-year-old mother called at around 3:30 p.m. and reported that she had been hit by the snow slab, but was fine and was already on the way back with her son.
In order to check her medically to be on the safe side, the rescue workers met her on the road with an ATV.
But they were also able to give the all-clear.
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For Haberle it is clear that the woman was very lucky.
The slope is interspersed with exposed rocks.
The operations manager cannot identify any wrongdoing on her or her son's part.
Both were well equipped for their snowshoe tour from Taubenstein via Lempersberg and Kirchstein to Rotwand and also seemed experienced.
Haberle suspects that the fact that they simply continued on despite the ongoing operation was due to the ignorance that is often observed in such cases.
“And of course the poor cell phone reception.”
sg