American mountaineer, 65, found dead after plunging into Spanish ravine after separating from husband while hiking
- Mountain rescue teams found woman on second day of intense search
A 65-year-old American mountaineer was found dead at the bottom of a ravine in Spain after being separated from her husband during a climb.
Desperate nightly searches failed to find the mountaineer after he disappeared during an expedition to the Fabeta Canal, in the province of Huesca, on September 9.
The climber’s husband raised the alarm after the couple separated and she failed to show up at an agreed location.
Footage shows Spanish rescuers searching for the woman, who has not been named, at night.
Mountain rescue teams scoured the area with a helicopter and dogs before they were able to recover the body from the bottom of a ravine on Sunday.
His body was taken to a nearby hospital for a full autopsy.
Spanish authorities search all night for missing American citizen
A helicopter was used to transfer the woman to a nearby town, from where she was taken to hospital for an autopsy.
Authorities received a call around 9:40 p.m. on Saturday, September 9, reporting that a woman who was with her husband on a route through the Guasa Trail had gone missing and had not returned to base.
After calculating the route she could have taken with her husband, mountaineering specialists searched it by car, then on foot, without success.
On Sunday morning, a Civil Guard helicopter combed the area again while ground teams brought in a search dog to support rescue efforts.
Around 12:30 p.m., an item of clothing was found in the Fabetas canal, west of the walls of Mondarruego.
Rescuers discovered that the woman had suffered serious injuries and had fallen to the bottom of a ravine.
Specialists from the Mountain Rescue and Intervention Group (GREIM) laid the woman on a helicopter and transferred her to the municipality of Boltaña.
She was then taken by hearse to the Forensic Anatomy Center in Zaragoza.
The woman’s body will be autopsied to establish the exact cause of death.
“During the weekend, the Aragon rescue teams carried out seven interventions during which seven people were evacuated/helped, one of them was found with injuries that proved fatal,” he said. said the Spanish Civil Guard in a statement.
Rescuers searched the area throughout the night and were able to locate the body on Sunday.
In 2021, two Americans died after falling into the sea from a cliff they were trying to climb on the Spanish island of Mallorca.
The two men, named locally as Mark Anthony Bacolod Stiles, 35, and Brandon Scott Burns, 25, both of Baltimore, Maryland, were killed during their climb.
The double tragedy occurred near a cove called Cala Sa Nau, near the town of Portocolom on the east coast.
The men, who are believed to have been vacationing on the Mediterranean island, are said to have practiced deep-water soloing, also known as psicobloc.
