View Full Version : Hiker rescued after many days - it happened again
Not sure if I've mentioned before, in our area there had been an impressive incident in 1985, when GI Kenneth Thomas Cichowicz based in Germany took a LD hiking, came up to our highest local mountain, crossed an full-face icy glacier, slipped, fell, got heavily injured and survived for 19 days until being rescued.
Due to the 30th annyversary of his rescue, there was a TV Special yesterday http://tv.orf.at/orf3/stories/2876582/ me and my wife were watching. Very touching and impressive, a really strong guy.
Now, a pretty similar thing happened in the same area:
A German guy took a multiday hike over the same mountain, despite of the heavy snow, and happened to posthole down into an extremely narrow and deep vertical hole in the rock named Doline, the kind of that is very typical for Karst.
He got seriousely injured, and survived 4 days being stuck 30 meters inside the hole, until he somehow managed to creep out a few meters and get some weak signal to send an emergency message.
http://www.salzi.at/2017/11/grossangelegte-rettungsaktion-im-bereich-der-adamek-huette-in-gosau/
Best thing one can say about the latest incident is, that the phone shortened the guy's stay in the Doline to 4 days.
How he was able to survive this long I have no information so far.
fiddlehead
11-09-2017, 08:15
Wow, yeah.
We saw some places in the karst in your part of the world that you would NOT want to fall into.
Lots of deep holes.
Makes for amazing scenery though.
rocketsocks
11-09-2017, 11:25
If only Ötzi the iceman had a cell phone.
His cellphone had been his fate, he got tracked by his enemies, shot and deadly injured.
Of course they stole the phone and left only the empty hip belt pocket he had carried it in.
They also left his external frame pack behind, as it deemed them a bit out of fashion.
rocketsocks
11-09-2017, 12:35
His cellphone had been his fate, he got tracked by his enemies, shot and deadly injured.
Of course they stole the phone and left only the empty hip belt pocket he had carried it in.
They also left his external frame pack behind, as it deemed them a bit out of fashion.twas a tough time!
Another Kevin
11-09-2017, 16:52
In the karst terrain around here, I snowshoe only in places where the trail is obvious (generally because if follows an old carriage road). Otherwise, there's too much chance of running into a snow bridge over a fissure. Fortunately, there are lots of places that are either above or below the limestone, so I mostly hike in those places in the winter. I'm only 45 minutes or so from Howe Caverns, which were discovered when someone's cow fell in a sinkhole.
Which reminds me that I want to get out for a few hours because I'd like to make a trail map of another of our itty-bitty nature preserves before the snow flies. Because it's on top of the limestone. Maybe tomorrow, I have a holiday.
rocketsocks
11-09-2017, 17:37
In the karst terrain around here, I snowshoe only in places where the trail is obvious (generally because if follows an old carriage road). Otherwise, there's too much chance of running into a snow bridge over a fissure. Fortunately, there are lots of places that are either above or below the limestone, so I mostly hike in those places in the winter. I'm only 45 minutes or so from Howe Caverns, which were discovered when someone's cow fell in a sinkhole.
Which reminds me that I want to get out for a few hours because I'd like to make a trail map of another of our itty-bitty nature preserves before the snow flies. Because it's on top of the limestone. Maybe tomorrow, I have a holiday.
Harriman has a lot of old iron mines that may cornice over, so to speak...that would suck!
A short clip of the rescue our police provided:
https://www.facebook.com/LPDooe/videos/801131580057657/
At the beginning when the copter is hoovering into scene, on one of the mountains in the background there is a cell tower.
That might explain why there had been cell reception at the point of the accident (in wide areas of this mountain range, there is no signal).
It seems that he tried to call the emergency number the whole time, and only got a handshake in the middle of the 4th night, but failed to get a real connection.
The Dispatcher had been so clever to contact him back by SMS, which worked and led to some limited communication and the guy could give his last-known GPS location.
He was down the hole for 5 days, and the meds say he might have survived another one or two nights at the max.
It is told that he had a powerbank to recharge his phone
Another piece of equipment that saved his life was a bivy bag with reflective inner side.
rocketsocks
11-10-2017, 14:50
40890
Much of the AT lies within the Karst zone.
The map tells it in a clear way, but I belived to remember from school (OK, more than 40 years ago) that the Appalachians were all Granite?
Is there partially a layer of (Carbonite?) Karst atop of the Granit?
What ist the correct name in English for this kind of "Carbonite" rock? Limestone? Calcium Carbonite?
(serious question, as I some times tell English speaking perople about our mountains and the climbing here and seem to be missing the correct words too many times)
grubbster
11-10-2017, 15:29
Is there partially a layer of (Carbonite?) Karst atop of the Granit?
What ist the correct name in English for this kind of "Carbonite" rock? Limestone? Calcium Carbonite?
Carbonite is what Hans Solo was frozen in.
Hans Solo? A guy I should know of?
rocketsocks
11-10-2017, 17:17
The map tells it in a clear way, but I belived to remember from school (OK, more than 40 years ago) that the Appalachians were all Granite?
Is there partially a layer of (Carbonite?) Karst atop of the Granit?
What ist the correct name in English for this kind of "Carbonite" rock? Limestone? Calcium Carbonite?
(serious question, as I some times tell English speaking perople about our mountains and the climbing here and seem to be missing the correct words too many times)Not sure. There are some geologist here, perhaps they’ll chime in.
rocketsocks
11-10-2017, 17:18
Hans Solo? A guy I should know of?I think he was part of Ronald Reagan’s star war program in the 80’s