{"id":307008,"date":"2026-02-19T23:51:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T23:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/307008\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T23:51:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T23:51:07","slug":"alpine-climber-guilty-of-manslaughter-over-girlfriends-death-on-austrian-mountain-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/307008\/","title":{"rendered":"Alpine climber guilty of manslaughter over girlfriend\u2019s death on Austrian mountain \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Austrian court late \u200con Thursday found a 37-year-old amateur mountaineer guilty of manslaughter over his girlfriend\u2019s death of \u200ccold near Austria<\/a>\u2019s highest summit after he left her to fetch help, local media reported.<\/p>\n

The court in the western city of \u200bInnsbruck handed Thomas Plamberger a five-month suspended prison sentence and a \u20ac9,400 fine for \u2060causing Kerstin Gurtner\u2019s death in January 2025 by gross negligence, an offence that \u200ccarries \u200ca \u200bmaximum prison sentence of three years.<\/p>\n

The trial has raised questions about the extent of legal liability in the high \u2060mountains, an inherently dangerous environment \u200bthat climbers generally explore at their \u200bown risk.<\/p>\n

The case \u200bis unusual because while climbing accidents are common, prosecutions over them are rare, even in situations like this one where various mistakes were made.<\/p>\n

Earlier, Plamberger insisted Kerstin Gurtner told him to leave her and seek help after they were trapped in sub-zero temperatures on the Grossglockner. <\/p>\n

It was claimed that he left Gurtner to die on the Grossglockner in January 2025 after making a series of fatal errors before and during their climb.<\/p>\n

Plamberger told the court he had climbed the mountain four times before, three times in winter conditions, before their ascent on January 19th, 2025. <\/p>\n

They had bad luck on the climb, he said, with a snagged rope costing them about 90 minutes. As night fell, they became trapped in a blizzard just below the 3,798m peak.<\/p>\n

\u201cI lay down beside her and she shouted loudly at me: \u2018go now, go\u2019, and with that, she saved my life,\u201d said Plamberger, a 37-year-old former soldier from Innsbruck.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe agreed that I would get help because we knew we would not get through the night up there.\u201d<\/p>\n

When he finally reached police by phone at 12.30am he explained that they needed help and that his girlfriend was unable to go on. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe police officer said no help was possible at night, that we should try to keep moving and try to descend,\u201d said Plamberger, adding he was \u201cendlessly sorry\u201d for his girlfriend\u2019s death. <\/p>\n

\u201cI loved her and didn\u2019t want that anything bad happened to her. Kerstin was very strong, used to the mountains, very good in mountain climbing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I want to \u200bsay is that I am so terribly sorry,\u201d Plamberger, who pleaded not guilty, told the court.<\/p>\n

Prosecutor Johann Frischmann presented charges of negligent manslaughter against Plamberger, arguing he would have known that 6.45pm was too late to reach the summit safely. <\/p>\n

The accused failed to pack appropriate emergency equipment, had no food apart from gummy bears and, when he left Gurtner, failed to help her shelter from winds that made it feel like -22 degrees. Prosecutors insisted Plamberger, as the more experienced mountaineer, had a \u201cclimb leader\u201d role and thus a higher ethical responsibility for the climb, in particular risk assessment.<\/p>\n

Plamberger denies he was climb leader and that he made all decisions together with his late girlfriend. After an 11-month investigation, including forensic investigations of the couples\u2019 phones, key testimony will surround when emergency calls were made \u2013 and from where.<\/p>\n

Investigators say Plamberger failed to flag down a police helicopter that passed them just before 11pm, then put his phone in silent mode and failed to answer subsequent rescue service calls. <\/p>\n

Alpine rescue say the first call they received came at 0.35am and was \u201cunclear\u201d. It was a further three hours before Plamberger informed them fully of the situation.<\/p>\n

Plamberger said he didn\u2019t flag down the police helicopter when it passed because they were not yet in serious difficulty.<\/p>\n

This changed a short time later when Gurtner became disoriented, he said possibly because of a recent flu.<\/p>\n

Plamberger insisted the conditions were good at the outset but deteriorated rapidly as they ascended the peak.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was impossible to predict how the wind was in the higher peaks.\u201d<\/p>\n

In court on Thursday, defence lawyers read out a letter from the dead woman\u2019s parents, insisting she had acted at her own risk. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot blame her boyfriend, she\u2019d done mountain runs and managed far more difficult mountains than this one,\u201d they wrote.<\/p>\n

In Die Zeit weekly, mother Gertraut Gertner insisted her daughter was experienced in night-time climbs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes me angry that Kerstin is being portrayed as a naive little thing who let herself be dragged up the mountain,\u201d she added. \u201cI think it\u2019s unfair how Kerstin\u2019s boyfriend is being treated. There\u2019s a witch hunt against him in the media and online.\u201d \u2013 Additional reporting Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Austrian court late \u200con Thursday found a 37-year-old amateur mountaineer guilty of manslaughter over his girlfriend\u2019s death…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307009,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[27132,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-307008","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-austria","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-top-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topnews","14":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}