A severely injured German hiker was rescued in the Tyrolean Alps after surviving a night in snow at around 2,200 metres following a large-scale search operation, Austrian police said on Wednesday.
The man, from the south-western German state of Baden-Württemberg, had set out alone on a hike near Bach close to the Bavarian border on Tuesday morning before falling in mountainous terrain, police said. When he failed to return by evening, the owner of his accommodation alerted emergency services.
Police, firefighters, mountain rescue teams with search dogs and drones were deployed, but the operation had to be suspended overnight due to poor weather conditions. A helicopter resumed the search on Wednesday morning once fog briefly lifted, allowing rescue teams to be dropped into the area.
The man was found at a snow-covered mountain saddle near the 2,388-metre Strahlkopf Peak in the Allgäu Alps, where investigators believe he had fallen down a steep and rocky slope.
Air rescue services said temperatures in the area had fallen to around freezing overnight. "It borders on a miracle for everyone involved that the mountaineer survived the night under these conditions," mountain rescuers said on Facebook.
The hiker was conscious but could not recall the circumstances of the accident, police said. He was airlifted to hospital in Murnau, Germany.
