A man spent the whole night buried under the snow after an avalanche, managed to call for help by phone and was rescued

The director of Citizen Protection of Bariloche, Argentina, informed local media that around 7 am this Thursday (crazy hour) the authorities found the man from Cordoba, between 30 and 35 years old, who was being sought on the López hill after the avalanche that took place this Wednesday.

One person died as a result of this incident and another was rescued alive, with minor injuries and hypothermia, shortly afterwards. Civil Defense confirmed that this new survivor is a person who managed to communicate by phone from the mountain after midnight, which helped to locate him.

After being rescued and placed on a stretcher, he was taken down to a base where an Army ambulance was waiting for him. Authorities reported that the victim’s health “is not optimal” because he was affected by the weather conditions he had to endure during the night at just over 2,000 meters above sea level, according to the Río Negro newspaper.

Nahuel Campitelli, head of the relief commission, confirmed that The victim was found “quite high up” on the hill, about 500 metres away from where his companions were. “He managed to get out of the snow and was able to call 911,” the rescuer told TN. “His body was stuck in the skis,” he added in a conversation with LN+.

“This person is proof that there can be exceptions. When a buried person is isolated, after 15 to 20 minutes the chance of survival is reduced to 10%. We couldn’t ask him to report much either because we wanted to take care of the battery and stay in touch,” added Campitelli, who stressed: “I have never seen someone survive in this way in 35 years.”

“He had been in a shelter with other people and then they went out to walk around that area of ​​the López. After the avalanche, the people at the shelter informed the rescue committee, which in turn notified Civil Protection,” added Madjinca, indicating that the survivor from Córdoba is “a mountaineer accustomed to these activities.”

The Avalanche: What Happened?

On the afternoon of this WednesdayAn avalanche on Lopez Hill, one of the most visited in the tourist city, hit three people who were on the mountain at the time; it caused the death of a Scottish tourist and injured two men.

One of them, originally from Bariloche, was rescued minutes after the incident, but it took longer to find the third victim, Augusto Gruttadauria from Cordoba, because he was far from the others.

The search operation, in which the Bariloche Andean Club, the Military Mountain School, the Gendarmerie and the city’s fire stations were participating, had been suspended at night. The first survivor who was treated and brought down from the mountain was suffering from hypothermia, so he had not been able to provide information about his companions.