A climber from Île-de-France died early Friday morning on the north face of Mont-Blanc, despite multiple rescue attempts by rescuers at an altitude of 4,000 meters, during the night and in the midst of a storm.

Thursday evening, the soldiers of the Chamonix high mountain gendarmerie platoon (PGHM) are called upon from all sides, when they receive a new call for help, says Commander André-Vianney Espinasse.

It is 6:50 p.m., a forty-something is alone near the Mont-Blanc summit.

He lost track, stuck at an altitude of 4,800 meters by "the storm, the wind, the cold", these same impossible weather conditions which already immobilize a team of rescuers with a helicopter.

A second aircraft then tries to climb other gendarmes, but the wind forces the pilot to drop them low, at 3,200 meters, forcing them to embark on a perilous night ascent.

A complex maneuver for emergency services

At 2:00 a.m., after reaching the Gouter refuge and waiting for a lull, they set out to meet the climber, in the dark, on the glaciers, facing a wind of 80 km / h and while 'They haven't heard from the man since 1:30. They meet him around 4:10 am at the Grand Plateau, a “deadly” zone where he was able to descend, at an altitude of 4,000 meters, under seracs which threaten to drop their tons of ice.

There, the three rescuers make a "hot spot" around him to delay the severe hypothermia of the mountaineer in distress.

But "at 5:30 am, still in a terrible wind, the climber goes into cardiac arrest," continues Commander Espinasse, confirming a story already published by the regional daily

Le Dauphiné Libéré

.

At the same time, a new attempt to “extract the impossible”, aiming to simply carry the victim by cable with his harness, again fails in the helicopter, because there is too much wind.

"Solo in the high mountains is really to be avoided"

“At the end of this abortive attempt, at 6.15 am, I made the decision to tell my rescuers to leave this extremely dangerous area, leaving the mountaineer there,” continues the officer.

It will finally be necessary to wait for the intervention of an Italian rescue helicopter, coming from the other side of the massif, to "tear the body from the mountain" and entrust it to the funeral directors.

"Last night, we struggled, but there was no miracle", concludes André-Vianney Espinasse, who wishes to recall that "solo in the high mountains is really to be avoided, for all the dangers objectives that it contains.

His men had already intervened Thursday afternoon for the fatal fall, while hiking, of a 65-year-old man near the Bossons glacier.

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  • Mont-Blanc

  • Mountaineer

  • Mountaineering

  • Miscellaneous