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an experienced alpine mountaineer Is charged murder after leaving your girlfriend austria‘S Highest mountain, Grossglockner, Before he freezes to death.
According to the Innsbruck public prosecutor’s office, Thomas Plumberger and Kerstin Gertner were just 50 meters from the 3,798-metre (12,460 ft) summit when she fell ill, suffering from exhaustion and disorientation.
Mr Plumberger decided to abandon it at 2am on Sunday 19th January this year and land at the nearest Mountain He went to the hut to ask for help, but returned six and a half hours later in the morning and found him dead.
Gertner, 33, froze to death alone on the mountain after being exposed to -8C temperatures that “felt like” even as low as -20C due to 45mph winds.
Prosecutors investigated the incident for 11 months and examined the couple’s mobile phones, sports watches and photographs of their climbs, as well as commissioned an independent report from an alpine mountaineering expert.
They have now charged Mr. Plumberger with negligent homicide, arguing that he made nine key mistakes that led to Gertner’s death, from not planning the operation properly to failing to liaise with search teams and police.
Plumberger has denied any wrongdoing and his lawyer has previously rejected part of Innsbruck prosecutors’ timeline of events. He has said that he left Gurtner on the mountain “by mutual consent”.
Prosecutors say the pair left two hours late on the morning of Jan. 18 to actually climb Grossglockner and return safely.
They were effectively stranded due to stormy weather at about 8.50pm, but prosecutors allege that Mr Plumberger made no attempt to call for help and did not issue any distress signal to the police helicopter, which was flying over their position at 10.50pm.
The police tried to call Mr Plumberger several times before he called an officer back at 00.35 am. The prosecutor’s office said the contents of the call remained “unclear” but Mr. Plumberger then silenced his phone and no further contact was made.
“At approximately 2 a.m., the defendant left his girlfriend unprotected, exhausted, hypothermic and disoriented, approximately 50 meters below the summit cross of the Grossglockner. The woman died,” the statement said.
It says, “Since the defendant, unlike his girlfriend, was already very experienced in alpine high-altitude tours and had planned the tour, he should be considered the responsible guide of the tour.”
Grossglockner is the highest mountain peak in Austria and is considered one of the most challenging climbs in the Austrian Alps, requiring full climbing and glacier gear.
Yet the police said Mr. Plumberger allowed his girlfriend to use a splitboard — a snowboard that can be divided in two, used like skis for climbing — and soft snowboard boots, gear that prosecutors said was inappropriate for their high-alpine winter route.
He also allegedly failed to move his girlfriend to a position where she could be sheltered from the wind or to give her his sleeping bag or an aluminum foil blanket to keep her warm before he left.
Prosecutors said the woman was inexperienced and had never undertaken an alpine high-altitude tour of such length, difficulty and altitude.
In a series of now-deleted posts on his Instagram, Mr Plumberger said Gertner’s death was “very painful”.
She wrote on social media, “I miss you so much. It hurts so unbelievably. Forever in my heart. Without you, time is wasted”, and co-signed the obituary written by her parents. image,
The obituary on Gaertner’s page since her death describes her as a “beloved daughter, sister, sister-in-law, godmother, granddaughter, partner and friend.”
“Thank you, dear Kerstin, for being you, for being you, and your spirit will always be there. Thank you for the impression you have left not only on me, but on many others. Through you, you live here too,” wrote a friend of Gertner.