More than a year after a 33-year-old woman froze to death on Austria’s highest mountain, her boyfriend goes on trial on Thursday accused of gross negligent manslaughter.
Kerstin G died of hypothermia on a mountain climbing trip to the Grossglockner that went horribly wrong. Her boyfriend is accused of leaving her unprotected and exhausted close to the summit in stormy conditions in the early hours of 19 January 2025, while he went to get help.
The trial has sparked interest and debate, not just in Austria but in mountain climbing communities far beyond its borders.
It’s obviously more than a binary choice. I’m not saying he is guilty here, just that it’s possible.
Have you done much climbing or much outdoors? What you say sounds intuitive but if you have someone more experienced that isn’t paying attention to the others and overconfident then they can quickly drag inexperienced people with a little trust or too much fear to speak out into situations those people can’t easily get out of alone. If there is someone leading they carry some responsibility for that and some people are reckless and misleading about it to the point I think the poison story isn’t that far off of equivalent
This is 100% true but there’s difference between moral responsibility and legal one. If you hire a professional guide then they are legally responsible for you. If you have an accident while under their care they will have to prove that what happened was impossible to prevent. If the accident happened because they made a mistake it’s on them. Legally.
If I go hiking with a group of friends it’s completely different. I can be by far the most experienced one but everyone understands that we’re are all equal members. They can ask me for recommendations but I can’t give them any orders. If something happens I can feel guilty and everyone can be mad at me but legally speaking I wasn’t responsible for anyone.
As I said, for me it’s crazy to claim negligent here because he was not responsible for her. You can claim manslaughter (imagine we’re driving in the middle of nowhere in winter, I tell to get out for a moment and abandon you. That’s murder) or some sort of fraud (imagine I convince you I’m a professional mountain guide, show you false papers, claim I climbed Mt Everest and so on but I have no idea about climbing. and I did it in order to lure you into high mountains and abandon you). If they can prove something like this happened he’s guilty. If it’s just about being the more experienced one thus being legally responsible it’s bullshit.