The Mammoth Book of Mountain Disasters Page 16

  In Zermatt we first spoke to the police, then with the guides, to discover if anything else had been found in the meantime. Nothing had, so all four of us went up to the Schönbühlhütte on the west side of the mountain, accompanied by a Swiss lady. At the hut we met Ludwig Steinauer and he promised to keep the Schönbühlhütte open, as it had already closed for the season. We had brought up with us a half-Akya stretcher with transport wheel. The weather was fine but very cold, which was good for our task.

  Early next morning we set off from the hut and crossed the Zmutt Glacier to the foot of the Matterhorn’s West Face. The Swiss lady remained in the hut. In about two and a half hours we reached the bergschrund. This was some two to four metres wide, with a fifteen-metre high vertical ice flank to climb on either side. There were also two snow bridges which proved very difficult. The lower slopes and the avalanche cone under the face yielded no trace of the victims and we came to the conclusion that in all probability the dead were buried under the masses of new snow. We roped up to search the area above the bergschrund to the start of the rock face, and to take a look into the couloir coming down from the Zmutt Ridge.

  Anderl told Klaus and Lothar that they, too, should rope up and try to cross the bergschrund and the ice slope. Klaus, who tried first, didn’t manage it, but Lothar then had a go and succeeded in reaching the upper edge of the dangerously steep, smooth ice cliff above and got a good stance. The vertical distance was about fifteen metres. Now Anderl and I made a serious error. We didn’t go as a two-man rope, but attached ourselves with karabiners from our chest harnesses to the rope from Lothar, belayed above. We all reached the upper stance and let Lothar go on right away. Above, the conditions were good and without thinking too much about it, we were able to climb together on the rope using our twelve-point crampons and axe points. The going was excellent on the hard firn. It was at an angle of about 50°. It was a mistake, but we didn’t give a moment’s thought to the fact that one of us could make a false move; we only had eyes for the icefield around and above us which we were scouring.

  We had already put a few rope’s lengths behind us; but moving together without resting was too strenuous for me and I was puffing and panting.

  I called to Anderl who was second on the rope above, “I’m going to untie from the rope and traverse over to the left to the Zmutt Ridge and get on to the rocks. Perhaps I can find a good stance there. From there,” I added, “I can search the upper section of the face with the glasses.”

  “Right,” he shouted back. I unclipped from the main rope and moved up to the left, where I had to cross a small hard gully down which stones hurtled in the afternoon when the sun was on the West Face.

  I was scarcely a metre above this gully when I heard a noise above. I looked up and couldn’t believe my eyes. A man was shooting head-first towards me. It was Lothar Brandler, who had been leading. It all happened so quickly and the reason I didn’t get torn off with him was because I had already crossed the gully and was out of his direct descent line. Anderl’s attempt to arrest the fall with his ice axe failed as Lothar was already falling too fast and the firn snow was very hard with ice beneath. I saw the whole thing clearly as if in slow motion. Anderl now swept past me, plucked from the face. I shouted to him, I forget what now, and then saw Klaus, the last man on the rope, receive a terrible jerk; he was projected off backwards, as if by catapult, down the mountain without being able to do a thing about it. Helpless, I could only watch, numbed, unable to intervene. It was dreadful to see one, then the other, whipped off into space, to see arms, legs, axes, rope, tangled, flailing, whirling down the gully, and then to watch them disappear over the edge of the vertical cliff. It was a fifteen-metre drop – had they fallen into the open bergschrund? Far below, I was able to make out the avalanche cone again and I waited anxiously to see if they would reappear there where it ran out, but no. I now feared that they had fallen into the schrund. I shouted and listened alternately. Nothing.

  Thoughts jumbled in my head; I had to force myself to consider carefully what to do – I can hear myself now, how I counselled myself out loud: “Wiggerl, you must think very carefully what is to be done!” It was as if I was rooted to the snow, standing there on the steep slope to one side of the hard gully, with four of the twelve crampon points in the firn and clutching my axe. I felt very alone; I dared not make a wrong move – those below needed me. It would have been dreadful had I fallen too . . .

  Two of the others had lost their axes in the fall. They were still sticking in the ice of the gully. Ice axes can be very useful items on a rescue operation, for splinting and transporting the injured. I must retrieve them, I thought. Carefully, step by step, I climbed downwards, then across and I had them. I could move well enough with two, but with three – what’ll I do with the third one, I asked myself? I was tempted to stuff it across in my chest harness, but that could be dangerous if I should fall too, so I hung it by its wrist loop to one arm. With extreme care and yet not slowly I reached the top edge of the bergschrund and the fifteen-metre ice wall. At last I could see what had happened and was somewhat encouraged. Two of them lay close together on the steep slope below the schrund, the rope ran up from them and into the crevasse. So one of them had fallen into this and the other two swept right over it and were now held by the rope. It should therefore be possible to get the one in the crevasse out. I shouted and then shouted again, and at last received a response, from the man in the crevasse. I asked him whether he was injured, but he only said he would see if he could climb up the rope. I called down that I would soon be there to give him a hand. The two others were lying motionless and I feared the worst.

  But first I had to direct all my concentration on the difficult descent of the ice wall with the three ice axes as a handicap. Immediately below the open bergschrund yawned blackly, too deep to see the bottom. I moved with circumspection, careful in case something should break off, or in case I should fall, yet at the same time angling diagonally down so that I shouldn’t fall into the crevasse if I did slip. I have forgotten how I managed to get down this tricky little wall without assistance. I certainly had luck on my side – with a last strong leap I reached the other side of the crevasse and stood beside the rucksacks that we had left there. In the meantime, the man in the crevasse had climbed up the rope and was now out, and I greeted him. It was Lothar Brandler.

  When I saw his face I was shocked but without letting it show – it was badly lacerated and covered with blood, and then I saw that his hands and arms were in the same state. He talked in strange, disjointed fragments and I realised he was suffering from shock. His behaviour confirmed it – he didn’t look at me and even wanted to throw the two rucksacks down the steep slope of some 250 metres. I had difficulty getting him down to the others. I carried the rucksacks myself and as I descended I could see that Anderl Heckmair was lying crumpled, unconscious and bleeding very badly from a gaping wound in the back of the head. Klaus Buschmann lay on his back, groaning loudly. He was having difficulty in breathing. I examined him and saw that he was not in fact badly injured. This eased my mind somewhat, but Anderl was quite still.

  I told the two Saxons to clench their teeth firmly and only do what I told them, at the same time belaying them both to their ice axes. Then I encouraged them to help me get Anderl settled more comfortably. As a first measure I bandaged his nasty head wound, and as I was doing it, he awoke for a brief moment and though semi-conscious, complained of pain in his right shoulder and arm. I had a closer inspection and saw he had dislocated his shoulder. He passed out again. His unconsciousness was now to my advantage and his; with some exertion I managed to get his shoulder back into place. He awoke immediately after this operation and right away recognised the Dent d’Hérens North Face which was the first thing he saw. He named it but didn’t connect it with his situation. He didn’t remember the accident or why he was there. I was touched that he recognised me right away and immediately said, “If Wiggerl’s here, then everything will be all right.�
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  Like Klaus he was having great difficulty with his breathing. I realised this could only mean broken ribs. After this preliminary first aid, it was now important to get them out of the danger zone, off the steep slope. Above, the sun was creeping across the West Face and we could expect stone falls soon. The gully above was like a cannon barrel aimed directly at us, only awaiting the final triggering of the sun. Therefore we had to get out of the firing line as fast as possible, but how?

  I gave the two young men precise instructions once again, securing them, one close in front of me, the other behind. They were like zombies, almost immobile, not with it, and I had to shout at them sharply to urge them on. There was no alternative; the urgent thing was to get Anderl down.

  Only when we had safely reached the bottom of the slope and traversed round a bit to get out of the danger zone, did I take notice of the other injuries of all three. Luckily, I had plenty of dressing material. As far as Lothar was concerned, after taking care of abrasions to both arms, the worst was over; Klaus also had severe abrasions as well as bad bruising to his back and his difficulty breathing. Later it was confirmed he had a broken rib. Anderl was in the worst state. Fortunately, the dislocation was now reduced and I strapped his arm to his chest. But I was particularly worried that he couldn’t hold up his head; it kept dropping on to his chest or falling to one side. I considered what this might mean. Then from a pair of nylon overtrousers I made a kind of cravat, a collar, wide, thick, strong and yet soft. There was an immediate improvement. Further investigation suggested that the difficulty in his breathing must be connected with other serious injuries. I was aware that he must have several broken ribs. I had a big over-anorak with me and used this as a strong support bandage-wise over his chest. This was extremely painful for him but I felt it would be the best thing in the long run. But what could I do about the many contusions Anderl had suffered? He was unable to move on his own and was in great pain if he tried to do so. It was impossible for him to stand on his own; I had to support him continually. First I tried to lay him on his back, but that presented further problems; I realised then that the lumbar vertebrae must be damaged. I tried all possible ways of getting him into a carrying position so that we could move him without causing him undue pain. The best seemed to be if he leant sideways on to me, clinging to the straps of my rucksack with his one good hand, his left one. I secured the rucksack firmly to my back, then put my right arm round his waist and grasped his belt. By this means I succeeded in easing things for him so that he could take tiny steps, albeit with great pain. There was no other choice, this was the only way we could, with luck, hope to get back to the hut in daylight. Perhaps, given time, he might have got along better by himself. But he could only put one foot ten centimetres in front of the other, not a centimetre more.

  We were all still wearing crampons. So we painfully progressed. Later when the snow surface became soft, I took off Anderl’s crampons. Every twenty or fifty metres I had to call a halt. The one way Anderl could rest was for me to go behind him, a little higher so that he could lean against my chest and sit on my knee. I very quickly lost all feeling in my feet in this torturous “resting” position. For me these stops were the worst of all. But how could we have made this difficult journey otherwise? I had thought of all sorts of possibilities: such as attach him to the rucksack and carry him, but he would have suffered unbearable agony like that. No, this was the best, I concluded.

  There was the additional problem of the two young men. I had to safeguard them across crevasses and supervise their every movement. Whenever it was time for a rest, the one in front would simply drop to the ground and the other would similarly crumple behind me and I could do nothing but look on. Anderl and I had difficulty instructing them in the simplest basic mountaineering rules; things like climbing down a glacier with crampons. I had to shout loudly, it was the only way I could get through to them. I knew that we still had in front of us a steep pitch of blank ice and that there the greatest difficulties awaited. Once at this impasse, I had to safeguard them step by step downwards, and then follow with the immobile Anderl. At every crevasse I had to traverse until it was a mere crack; only there was it possible to cross. Anderl still took the tiniest of steps. We had already been going five hours and finally had the glacier behind us. But now came rock and moraine that was almost more difficult than the ice. The good thing about this section was that finally I didn’t have to worry about the two young men. There was no longer any danger, no crevasses, no fear of slipping; it was just wearisome. We could see the Schönbühlhütte and from time to time tried calling. But there was no-one to be seen.

  After another hour, we heard shouts and saw climbers descending the moraine, which we had to reach to gain the hut. We were overjoyed and I was enormously relieved to see them. It would have been quite impossible for me to have overcome the sixty-metre high moraine wall without the help of a rope and a belay from above. Now a climber with a rope came down towards us, which enabled this last obstacle to be overcome.

  Above, on the edge of the moraine, was the track to the hut and once there I would be faced with a difficult decision. With the help of the climbers I could be in the hut with Anderl in half an hour, but ought we not get all the injured down to Zermatt right away? Even with assistance from the climbers from the hut we couldn’t get the three injured men down to the valley in less than four hours. It had already taken seven from the scene of the accident to the hut path. Moreover, we were all shattered. I tried to talk to Anderl, asked him how he felt. He was of the opinion that if he could rest and be taken care of in half an hour at the hut that would be best. I agreed that to get him into a good comfortable position was top priority. Also he, like the rest of us, needed rest.

  We carried Anderl up to the hut in a rope seat, as quickly as possible, but I could see that his condition had deteriorated. That night I stayed up very late working out the method for transporting Anderl down to Zermatt. The Swiss lady, too, had her hands full after our arrival, taking care of Anderl who was completely helpless. The pain of his bruises got steadily worse and began to swell badly. There was also the problem of Lothar and Klaus. Klaus’s contusions were giving him a lot of trouble now. He was covered in blue patches with terrible black swellings. I thought by morning he would surely be unable to use his limbs.

  I got up very early and got our half-Akya assembled ready to carry Anderl. It was padded with our sleeping bags so that he would be more comfortable, with his legs secured to a bridge splint. Lothar and Klaus seemed to be completely incapable of movement. I explained to them that only exercise would ease their condition and allow them to move again. Once more I had to use strong words to get that message across. Two of the Swiss climbers helped me with the difficult business of evacuating Anderl to Zermatt and things went better for the two young Saxons once they got going. Anderl was reasonably comfortable on the journey and I was now thankful that I had let him rest in the hut overnight. It had been the right decision.

  Arriving in Zermatt, we went straight to the doctor in the hospital. This was purely to have a look and see what was broken. Our resolve to get Anderl back home right away, come what may, was unchanged. He was given a firm, wide strapping over the whole chest. Luckily, the hole in his head turned out to be only a cut, probably caused by his ice axe. His shoulder was back in place and was in order, but it was established that he had a fracture in his cervical vertebrae.

  Our car was in St Niklaus and when we fetched Anderl from hospital the next morning, the doctor expressed doubts about the wisdom of the long journey. But we made up a bed padded with sleeping bags by pushing the front passenger seat right back without its back rest. Lying with his legs bent, he travelled without pain over the Furka and Oberalp Passes, then through the upper Rhine Valley. After crossing the border at Oberstdorf, we took Anderl to hospital. A thorough examination revealed that he had also a fracture to a lumbar vertebra together with a fracture of the right clavicle. Six ribs were broken. Since the ri
bs forced Anderl to lie perfectly still, no plaster cast was necessary for the vertebrae.

  Anderl, the first conqueror of the Eiger Nordwand, passed his fiftieth birthday in the hospital. We were both thankful it was all over; after all, we realised, it could have been a lot worse. I have often speculated on what would have happened if I hadn’t untied from the rope above the bergschrund. All four of us would then have lain injured on the glacier and help, if it had come at all, would certainly have been too late. Above all, the fact that Lothar Brandler, who was still very young at the time, took the lessons of the accident very much to heart was gratifying. Later he gained extensive experience in ice techniques and, already being a fine rock climber, developed into an outstanding mountaineer.

  Plucked from the Pillar

  Emmanuel Schmutz

  Emmanuel Schmutz has taken part in many evacuations in the Chamonix Alps and, typically of a climber and guide who has to deal with high drama as a daily routine, this tale stands as a memorial to understatement. It is difficult to imagine a more impressive location to enact a rescue. It was completed competently by true professionals.

  Nearly fifty per cent of all mountain rescues in France take place in the Mont Blanc massif. The number of incidents increased from about twenty-four a year in 1959 to an average of over three hundred in the 1980s, a frightening escalation in twenty years. In the five-year period up to 1985, 245 climbers have been killed in the Mont Blanc area and over a thousand badly injured. Two-thirds of the accidents occur in July and August when there can be more than two thousand climbers a day on the mountains.

  Mountain rescue for the Mont Blanc massif at Chamonix is now based on a specialised unit, the PGHM (Peleton de Gendarmerie de Haute Montagne), about forty strong, most of them guides or aspirant guides. Before, it was the province of the guides of the Chamonix Company, but by 1958 the number of accidents in this overcrowded part of the Alps made people realise it was essential to create an organisation whose sole purpose was mountain rescue. The need for a force like the PGHM was driven home by the tragic accident on Mont Blanc at the end of December 1956. It was obvious on this rescue that the set-up was totally inadequate.