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Boyfriend Charged After Allegedly ‘Leaving Girlfriend To Freeze To Death’ On Mountain Summit

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The man’s trial is set to begin in February 2026
A man has now been charged with manslaughter after he allegedly left his girlfriend stranded high up on a mountain, in conditions that later turned deadly.At the beginning of the year, the man, whose identity has not been made public, set out to climb the Grossglockner mountain in Austria with his girlfriend, choosing a route on what is known as the country’s highest peak.Reports describe the 39-year-old as an experienced climber who was familiar with alpine tours, while his 33-year-old partner had no experience at all and was relying on him to guide her safely through the trip.

 

 

Disaster struck as the pair got close to the summit of the 12,460-foot mountain on January 19, when the terrain and conditions became more difficult and the woman reached a point where she could not continue climbing any farther.Instead of calling emergency services straight away, the man reportedly left his girlfriend on the mountain so he could go and try to get help on his own. By the time rescuers reached the area, she had tragically ‘froze to death’.The boyfriend has since been charged with manslaughter by gross negligence, according to Austrian outlet Heute, which has been following the case.

A statement from the public prosecutor’s office, shared via a German news channel, read: “At approximately 2:00 a.m., the defendant left his girlfriend unprotected, exhausted, hypothermic, and disoriented about 50 meters below the summit cross of the Grossglockner.”It continues: “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.”

Prosecutors say he is accused of making nine serious mistakes during the tour, with the main one being that he decided to attempt the climb at all, especially when considering the ‘difficulty and altitude’ and his partner’s total lack of experience.

Grossglockner is Austria’s highest mountainKERSTIN JOENSSON/AFP via Getty Images

 

 

Prosecutors also claim that he started the tour roughly two hours later than originally planned and that he ‘did not anticipate an emergency during the tour planning’, which meant he did not have the emergency equipment he needed when his girlfriend began to have problems.On top of this, he allegedly allowed his girlfriend to wear equipment that was ‘unsuitable for a high-alpine tour in mixed terrain’, instead of insisting she use proper gear more suited to the route and conditions.Elsewhere, the 39-year-old is accused of failing to make an emergency call in time before nightfall, not turning back early enough despite the harsh weather conditions, and not making any distress signals when a police helicopter flew over the area at around 10:50 p.m. on the fateful day.

The emergency number is Austria 112Getty Stock Image

 

 

Lastly, investigators say he did not do everything he could to give his girlfriend the best possible chance of surviving when he made the decision to leave her and go for help.“The defendant failed to move his girlfriend to a sheltered spot to protect her from heat loss,” prosecutors say, per Heute. “Before leaving his girlfriend at around 2:00 a.m., he neither used her bivouac sack nor the available emergency blankets to protect her from further cooling, nor did he remove her heavy backpack and splitboard.”His trial is scheduled to begin on February 19, 2026, and is expected to examine in detail how each of these alleged failures contributed to the tragedy.

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