A climber who left his girlfriend to perish on a frigid mountain has been convicted of manslaughter.
Thomas Plamberger, aged 39, faced trial on Thursday after his girlfriend, Kerstin Gurtner, 33, succumbed to the harsh conditions just 150 feet shy of the 12,460-foot summit of Grossglockner in January last year, where temperatures plummeted to minus 20 degrees Celsius.
During the trial in Innsbruck, Plamberger was accused of abandoning Gurtner in a state of exhaustion, hypothermia, and disorientation while he sought help.
Upon receiving the guilty verdict, Plamberger was sentenced to five months in prison, suspended for three years, and fined £8,400.
In his approximately two-hour testimony before Judge Norbert Hofer, Plamberger expressed deep regret, stating, “I am incredibly sorry.” He mentioned that he had “loved” Gurtner and that they had always planned their excursions together.
Plamberger repeatedly highlighted his lack of alpine training, asserting that he was not qualified to act as a mountain guide for Gurtner.
He said: ‘I trained myself, for example with videos.’ He claimed his girlfriend was almost as knowledgeable and skilled at mountain climbing as he was.
‘I may have done more tours, but she knew exactly what she was getting into,’ he explained in the packed courtroom, attended by around 50 media representatives.
Plamberger claimed his girlfriend shouted at him to ‘Go, now go!’ after he spent an hour and a half with her in freezing conditions when the couple experienced a rope jam.
He said he ‘really couldn’t say’ how the rapid physical deterioration had occurred and described it as an ‘exceptional situation’ for both of them.
The seasoned climber told the hearing he had only attempted the descent of the mountain after the couple had discussed it, saying that his girlfriend encouraging him to leave saved his life.
But Judge Hofer found the circumstances of how Gurtner’s body was found inconsistent with Plamberger’s explanations.
The judge showed a photograph of Gurtner hanging freely from the rock face – indicating that she had fallen, he said.
Plamberger said he had left her at a different location approximately ten metres away, and restrained.
He claimed he secured her to the rock face with a rope to prevent her from falling.
But the court heard she was found dangling from the rope and had been hanging on the rock face for two hours before she died.
The Innsbruck prosecutor’s office said he left Gurtner at 2am and a rescue operation began 90 minutes later when he called emergency services.
Rescue teams were unable to reach Gurtner until the following day due to hurricane-force winds, and she was found just below a cross that marks the summit.
The head of the mountain rescuer team who found her body told the judge’ it was certainly not a pretty sight for us’, adding ‘it looks as if she had climbed down’
Given the extremely harsh conditions, the defendant should have turned back earlier, prosecutors said.
Even when he had left his partner to get help, he did not bring her to a wind-protected place and did not use bivouac sack or aluminium rescue blanket.
The mountain rescue station’s group instructor said Plamberger’s ‘account of the situation didn’t quite add up’.
He said the 39-year-old ‘couldn’t explain why he hadn’t used the bivouac sack’ and that he could have used one if she was left in the spot he claimed.
During the trial, the questioning of a total of 15 summoned witnesses and two expert witnesses took place.
Gurtner’s mother and father were called to the witness stand first. Both stated that their daughter had been ‘really active’ in mountaineering since 2020.
During the climb, Gurtner had kept her mother updated via messages and eventually sent her a text saying ‘we’re down’ – a move she believes was to reassure her.
Plamberger was also accused of making a series of mistakes on the trip, which resulted in Gurtner’s death, including being poorly equipped and failing to call for help despite realising the situation was critical.
Webcam images show the glow of the couple’s two headtorches as they slowly edge towards the summit at around 6pm – almost 12 hours after setting off – then, hours later, only one light is seen as it moved down.
Rescue teams were unable to reach Gurtner until the following day due to hurricane-force winds, and she was found just below a cross that marks the summit.
Gurtner’s social media profile is illustrated with dozens of images of her and Plamberger climbing and hiking, and she described herself as a ‘winter child’ and ‘mountain person’.
As part of their probe, investigators examined their mobile phones, sports watches, laptops and photographs the couple had taken as they made their way to the summit, before concluding he made several errors.
They highlighted how the couple were poorly equipped – Gurtner was wearing snowboard soft boots instead of proper hiking footwear – and officials say he ‘turned away’ despite a helicopter flying low over the area.
Through his lawyer, Kurt Jelinek, Plamberger denied the allegations and insisted he turned away to get help, and it was simply a ‘tragic, fateful accident’.
In a statement announcing the charge, Innsbruck prosecutor’s office said: ‘At approximately 2am on January 19, the defendant left his girlfriend unprotected, exhausted, hypothermic, and disoriented about 50 meters below the summit cross of the Grossglockner.
‘The woman froze to death. Since the defendant, unlike his girlfriend, was already very experienced with alpine high-altitude tours and had planned the tour, he was to be considered the responsible guide of the tour.’
He was also accused of scheduling the start of the climb around two hours later than prudent, while not carrying any sufficient emergency equipment.
Given the harsh weather conditions with wind speeds of up to 46 mph and temperatures of minus eight degrees, which felt like minus 20 degrees when combined, the defendant should have turned back earlier, according to the public prosecutor.
Plamberger and Gurtner were stranded from around 8.50pm, and he allegedly did not give any distress signals when a police helicopter flew over at 10.50pm.
After several attempts by the Alpine Police, he finally spoke to an officer at around 12.35am.
Officials say he had put his phone on silent and could not be contacted by Alpine Police, but eventually, at 3.30am, he decided to notify the rescue services after having left Gurtner alone.
It also emerged that the seasoned climber allegedly left an ex-girlfriend on the mountain range following a ‘heated argument with her on the Grossglockner in winter’.
Prosecutors said he left his ex-girlfriend alone on the mountain in pitch darkness after she complained about the difficulty of the climb.
This is a breaking news story. More to follow.
