The race against the clock continues to find the young French hiker, Simon Gautier, missing since Friday, August 9, near Policastro, about 200 km south of Naples. On Saturday, August 17, rescuers were looking for reinforcements and "new data" in this rocky, hard-to-reach area where the 27-year-old was injured.
"The search resumed this morning at 6 o'clock and new alpine rescue teams must arrive," said a law enforcement official. "We are also waiting in the day for new data to try to tighten up the research area, which is very large."
Rescue, firemen and speleologists mobilized
The teams were reinforced around Italian relief, firefighters specialized in the high mountains and speleologists supported in the air by a helicopter and drones. They can also count on the friends of Simon Gautier since about twenty of them are on the spot to help the relief. However, they ask for more resources and more help from France in this research.
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His friends were able to see Simon Gautier on the eve of his departure on Thursday, August 8th. On the pictures, they saw him enter a supermarket. After discussion with the cashier at the store who saw the French hiker, they had confirmation that he had bought water and food for about fifteen days. On social networks, a friend of the young man present on the spot announced that the investigators were now "certain" that the hiker had left with supplies of food and water.
His phone stops responding
The circumstances of his fall, however, remain obscure. This Frenchman, who has been living in Rome for two years to write a thesis in art history, called for help with his mobile phone on Friday, 9 August, around 9 am According to the recording of the call broadcast by Italian media, he said he fell off a cliff and broke both legs, but could not say where he was, "in the middle of nowhere, on the side".
Lack of reliable data on the location of his phone, which no longer responds, the area of research, extends for the moment on 140 km² and overflows in Calabria. "There are very few antennas in this uninhabited region that can allow a precise location of the past call," said the head of law enforcement.