Last week, two British climbers were rescued from Western Europe’s tallest mountain, Mont Blanc. Finn McCann and Tom Greenwood had climbed to roughly 3,500 meters when they realized that they were unable to climb and further up the mountain. Unfortunately, they were also unable to climb back down again.
One of the pair had a cell phone on them and attempted to contact mountain rescue, but were unable to get through. The climbers had put the numbers for the French and the Italian mountain rescue services in their phone, but the numbers had apparently been disconnected.
By the time they figured this out, their cell phone battery was nearly drained and the pair resorted to calling a friend back in England. Their friend managed to contact the proper authorities and arranged a rescue for them. After a cold night on the mountain and two aborted rescue attempts, the pair was eventually picked up by a helicopter. Total time trapped on a ledge? 21 hours. Ouch.
- Via Google
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