Death of Canadian hiker, and 5 teenagers yesterday

A 56-year-old Canadian woman has died in Italy’s Dolomite mountains after she was caught in a sudden snowstorm Thursday evening.

The woman was climbing with a 56-year-old male companion. The two climbers called the Italian Alpine Rescue Corps for help after being hit by the snowstorm about two kilometres from a mountain refuge, the Associated Press is reporting.

The rescuers reached the climbers, however the bad weather made evacuation of the woman by helicopter impossible. She subsequently died. Her companion was treated for severe hypothermia. Rescuers put up a tent to shelter her companion until the storm cleared. He was taken off the mountain by helicopter early Friday and is being treated at a hospital in northern Italy, according to AP.

 

Neither hiker has been identified.

 

A spokesperson Global Affairs Canada, Kevin Sweet, told the National Post that the department “is aware of the death of a Canadian citizen in Italy. Our thoughts go out to the family of the deceased individual. For privacy reasons, no further information can be disclosed.”

This isn’t the first death of a hiker in the Dolomites. Media reports going back several years have documented several fatal accidents in the mountain range shared by Italy and Austria.

 

In July of this year, The Brussels Times reported that a 42-year-old Belgian hiker died while climbing the Italian Dolomites. The victim was with a 28-year-old friend. Early investigations suggest they were headed for Via Ferrata a path involving hiking routes that require steel cables, rungs and ladders, but they were not attached to the cable at the time of the accident.

Also, in April of this year, the Daily Mail reported a 55-year-old female plummeted 1,000 feet to her death after slipping into a rocky ravine. She had been hiking on the Sorapiss mountain in the Dolomites with three friends. All had safety equipment, including crampons, but it was not enough to prevent the accident. The victim had reportedly been carrying skis on her back when she tumbled to her death.

 

In July of 2023, ANSAbrasil.com reported the death of a 44-year-old Spanish hiker in the Pale di San Martino mountains, the biggest massif in the Dolomites. The hiker slipped down a steep decline for around 40 metres around 2,200 metres up.

 

In November 2022, the New York Post said an Italian woman fell 1,000 feet to her death after slipping off the edge of a cliff while hiking on the Dolomites. She was hiking with friends in the Dolomites when she slipped and fell “screaming” into a ravine and out of sight.

 

In July 2022 the BBC reported that British woman, Louise Atkinson, 55, fell to her death while walking in the Dolomites with her husband. She, plunged about 30 metres, Italy’s Alpine Rescue service said. The couple was reported to have taken a wrong turn and ended up on a more challenging path. The couple ended up at a high altitude via the Ferrata cableway, which translates to “iron path”. The route is normally for experienced climbers fixed to cables, rungs or ladders using specialist equipment.

Also, in July 2022, the Australian news website, news.com.au, reported that an expert mountain hiker was all smiles when he and a group were climbing on the largest glacier in the northern Italian Dolomites. Filippo Bari, 28, from Malo, Italy, was so excited about the hike that he took a selfie and sent it to his brother. Twenty minutes later he was killed after a huge chunk of glacier broke off, sending an avalanche of ice, snow and rocks down the slope.

 

In July 2019, the Netherlands newspaper NL Times reported that a 52-year-old Dutch woman died while with her husband and their two sons, ages 12 and 14, when she slipped and fell 100 meters into a canyon in the Dolomites. They were 500 metres away from a hiking hut at an altitude of 2,278 metres when the woman fell.

In January 2017, the CBC quoted Italian media reports that a 24-year-old Waterloo, Ont., woman, Chelsea Rebecca Alvarez, died while hiking in the mountains near the Italian-Austrian border on New Year’s Day. She was following a mountain path at an altitude of 2,200 metres, lost her balance and fell about 150 metres into a valley below.

In July 2014, the Italian website, The Local, reported a man hiking with his daughter fell to his death while climbing the Cimon della Pala peak in the Dolomite mountains. He had gone ahead of his daughter to check the route when he slipped and fell around 80 metres. The hikers were reportedly well-prepared with ice axes and wearing crampons to tread the snow-covered mountain

 

In June 2009, the British newspaper, The Telegraph, reported that a British woman fell 200 metres to her death while hiking in the Dolomite mountains.

 

The frequency of climbing accidents in the Austrian Alps (the Alps are shared predominantly by Austria, Italy and Switzerland) was studied by the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland. The retrospective nine-year study was released in 2017. The study states that the annual number of accidents showed a continuous increase from 467 in 2006 to 700 in 2014. In total, 5.8% of all victims died during the 9-year period.

 

According to the study, 75.3% of the hikers fell during descent and 80.9% of the victims had their accident on a marked hiking trail or small path. The female/male ratio for fatal accidents was 28% to 72%.

 

The study concluded that male hikers were at greater risk. This was linked with accidents occurring in pathless terrain. The researchers recommended “a critical self-assessment of…individual capabilities and mountain hiking skills and adequate planning of the hiking tours for mountain hikers.”