A New Year's Day tobogganing trip in the Austrian Alps ended in tragedy when a couple plunged 250 feet down a mountainside after taking a fatal wrong turn. The husband, a 63-year-old Austrian man, died instantly, while his 58-year-old wife suffered severe, life-threatening injuries.
Fatal Turn on the Slopes
The accident occurred on the Rabantalm mountain in East Tyrol. The couple were sledding alongside their daughter and her partner when they suddenly veered off the edge of a vertical slope after navigating a corner. Other sledders ascending the mountain raised the alarm after noticing a fresh toboggan track extending beyond the safe boundary and hearing desperate screams from below.
Emergency Mountain Rescue Response
Emergency services were swiftly dispatched to the remote location. The critically injured wife was initially airlifted to Lienz District Hospital but was later transferred to the larger Klagenfurt Regional Hospital due to the gravity of her condition. The Lienz Mountain Rescue team worked to recover the husband's body from the treacherous terrain. A crisis intervention team was deployed to the accident site to support the couple's distraught relatives.
A Second Alpine Tragedy
This incident marks another devastating blow to the Alpine region following a separate New Year's catastrophe. In Switzerland, a fire at the Le Constellation bar in the Crans-Montana ski resort claimed nearly 50 lives and left 115 injured. The blaze erupted around 1:30 a.m. during a holiday celebration, with witnesses describing a scene of panic as people tried to escape the basement nightclub via a narrow staircase.
Initial reports from witnesses inside the Swiss bar suggest the fire may have started when a female bartender, lifted onto a colleague's shoulders, was holding a lit candle in a bottle. The flames spread rapidly, causing part of the wooden ceiling to collapse. The incident is under investigation, with authorities ruling out a deliberate attack.
