You tried to insult me!!!!!
I'm crushed, I tell you. Crushed.
I don't know what I'm going to do next. Just go and eat worms or something.
Posted on 12/20/2025 4:04:20 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
A man in Austria was charged in the death of his girlfriend after leaving her behind, in a case testing ideas of freedom and responsibility in the mountains.
The Grossglockner, Austria’s highest mountain, seen from the nearby Sonnblick Observatory.Credit...Kerstin Joensson/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
A distant webcam captured the moments the couple’s hiking trip started to unravel.
The pair, a boyfriend and girlfriend, were nearing the summit of Grossglockner, the tallest mountain in the Austrian Alps, when their lights appeared on its dark peak.
Around midnight, the man said, his girlfriend was struck by sudden exhaustion and could not continue. He said the two made a contentious, if not uncommon, decision: He would leave her behind and continue alone to find help.
Hours later, he was out of harm’s way, and the woman was dead. Rescuers found her frozen body later that morning not far from the summit, officials say.
Now, nearly a year later, the authorities have accused the man of making a series of mistakes that led to his girlfriend’s death, charging him this month with gross negligent manslaughter.
The unusual case has roiled the mountaineering community and could have ramifications for Austria’s large alpine tourism industry. Mountaineering in Austria has surged in popularity in recent years, and experts say underprepared visitors are taking more risks and accidents are reaching record highs.
The case has also provoked a broader debate in Austria, as questions of personal responsibility collide with a long-established legal tradition that requires people to protect others and avert danger.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Allegations: Prosecutors have charged Plamberger with gross negligent manslaughter, alleging he made several critical errors.
He allegedly failed to make an emergency call for hours, did not signal a passing helicopter, and later put his phone on silent, missing calls from rescue services.
He also allegedly left Gurtner in an exposed spot without using available emergency gear like a bivouac sack or rescue blankets to protect her from the cold.
Allegations: Prosecutors have charged Plamberger with gross negligent manslaughter, alleging he made several critical errors.
He allegedly failed to make an emergency call for hours, did not signal a passing helicopter, and later put his phone on silent, missing calls from rescue services.
He also allegedly left Gurtner in an exposed spot without using available emergency gear like a bivouac sack or rescue blankets to protect her from the cold.
Why didn't she signal the passing helicopter?
Was her phone on silent?
Did she miss calls from rescue services?
Why didn't she find an unexposed spot?
Why didn't she protect herself from the cold by using available emergency gear like a bivouac sack or rescue blankets?
Should he have stayed with her and died on the mountain? Of course not.
Again: She was an adult. She chose to go on a dangerous adventure. She was responsible for herself.
It's a terrible tragedy, but she, not he, is responsible.
When I was skiing in Switzerland with my son, we decided to ski from one town to another. I son skied ahead of me, and I found myself alone, high in the alps, very tired, and with only a series of steep, triple black diamond slopes on which to descent to the town of my destination. I made it, well after dark. If I had died on the mountain, it would have been my fault. Nobody else's. No one but me would have been to blame.
One of the smartest things I ever learned, I learned as a pre-teen: "It's my own damn fault, nobody else's."
You tried to insult me!!!!!
I'm crushed, I tell you. Crushed.
I don't know what I'm going to do next. Just go and eat worms or something.
Apparently he told her he was going to get help. She must have trusted him. She might also have become confused because she was hypothermic.
If the roles were reversed the authorities would be in pretzels making excuses for her. Even if she committed the same errors, they wouldn’t press charges. They’d say she’s torn up her boyfriend died, shes now the persecuted victim. No such position taken for the guy who just lost his girlfriend.
He might also have become confused because he was hypothermic.
Too confused to notify authorities about her like he said he would, but not too confused to save himself? Well, that’s a convenient confusion.
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