A man is dead and his son is lucky to be alive after a tragic day in the Karwendel Range in Austria. While the two were hiking on the popular Mittenwalder Hohenweg trail (pictured above), an 11-year-old boy was struck by lightning. He was burned and tossed off a cliff onto a steep slope where he tumbled for several meters before grabbing a tree.
The boy had a bleeding leg fracture that was poking through his leg, burns and back injuries. The boy’s father, who was hiking with him, tried to go down the slope to save the boy, but slipped and fell 150 meters to his death.
Other hikers in the area heard the boy’s screams and alerted the caretaker at Brunnsteinhutte, a small hut located at 1,560 meters. Rescuers in helicopters were sent to the scene and recovered the father’s body, not knowing the boy was dangling on the side of a cliff.
Six hours later, the boy heard the clanging of carabiners from rescuers in the area and began to scream for help again. The rescuers were able to locate him and hoist him to safety. He was flown to a local hospital where he is in satisfactory condition. While the boy was being rescued, he continued to ask how his father was.
If you can read German, read about the tragic story here.
he Mittenwalder Klettersteig requires some very basic climbing skills. It requires also absolutely no fear of heights and good orientation skills in case of a sudden weather change. Here, high on the ridge the weather can change within minutes and the hiker is surrounded by dense fog for the rest of the day. The entire route along the ridge and descending back into the valley is a very long and strenuous trip requiring a strong physical shape and endurance. See: http://www.summitpost.org/route/182680/mittenwalder-klettersteig.htmlOn the same day, the Ramsau Bergwacht and a SAR-Helicopter were called to rescue a pair hiking from the Schärtenspitze (2.153 Meter) im Hochkalter-Massiv. When the pair tried to escape an oncoming thunderstorm via the Schärten-Nordost-Verschneidung and lightning started to strike near them they called made an emergency call to the Bavarian Red Cross for assistance.
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