The ski mountaineer escaped the avalanche for a few meters A rescuer: «It was a fatality. They were expert people “
Malborghetto-Valbruna
“I don’t feel like talking right now. I have already told how things went to the financiers. I’m sorry. Inside of me I feel too many things ». Andrea Polo, 40, is the third ski mountaineer who was descending the Jôf Fuart gully yesterday morning. His two friends Carlo Picotti and Federico Deluisa were overwhelmed by an avalanche. Thanks to the fact that he escaped from the mouth of the northeast gorge after being the first to go down, he was saved. Yesterday he was taken back to the valley after the bodies of his hiking companions, and he told his misadventure to the financiers of the Sella Nevea Sagf, sitting around the table of the Prati Oitzinger farmhouse. The base camp for rescue operations was set up right here. Polo did not hesitate to remember those tragic moments at high altitude. He who has climbed dozens of mountains, and therefore has great experience behind him. “He was aware of what happened – says one of the rescuers – because when one goes to the peaks at high altitude he knows that the possibility of an accident is always around the corner, sometimes due to fatality, as in this case, other times due to imprudence or human error”. Even those aboard the helicopter that brought him back to the valley had the same feeling: «Andrea knows the rules of the mountain and he knows that things of this kind can happen». Immediately after the incident, those who witness the death of their friends are dazed, and do not fully realize what has happened. The pain increases with the passing of the hours, when you begin to receive the first phone calls and you realize that the two excursion companions are no longer there. «Unfortunately, avalanches occur, even at times considered safe, despite all precautions. Unfortunately”. Stefano Rosenwirth is the deputy foreman of the station of the National Alpine and Speleological Corps of Friuli Venezia Giulia. He also took part in the recovery operations yesterday. “There were the members of the CNSAS, the technicians of the helicopter rescue and some men of the Alpine Rescue of the Guardia di Finanza for the findings of the case – adds Rosenwirth -. First the two lifeless people at the bottom of the gully were recovered, then, with the winch, the unharmed skier was hoisted onto the aircraft ». Outside the farm the comings and goings of people were chaotic for hours, between rescuers and police. “The snow slab broke off almost at the beginning of the descent, they may have traveled a few hundred meters, no more,” assures Rosenwirth. The snowfalls of the last few days have made the ridges at high altitude unstable. In this regard, the deputy foreman is certain that when it happened in the northeast gorge of the Jôf Fuart it was not predictable: «The risk is always there. The overwhelmed ski mountaineers were expert people who knew these mountains well ». –