Climbing
Gaëtan Rieutort testified on Tuesday, February 27, to help investigators understand the events that led to the death of four mountaineers in the Puy-de-Dôme in France on Sunday, February 25. Gaëtan Rieutort was one of the three survivors of the avalanche, which saw four mountaineers perish, including his cousin Éric Rieutort, an EMT.
Gaëtan Rieutort, a keen mountaineer, skier, and firefighter, had been asked by his cousin Éric to train for an expedition on Mont-Blanc. 48-year-old Éric had hired experienced mountain guide, David Vigouroux, to help the pair prepare for the planned expedition. The excursion to the Val d’Enfer was the first training session and as it was the first attempt, they set out without skis. Vigouroux equipped his clients with the necessary beacons, crampons, two ice axes each, shovels, probes, and helmets. They start the morning with exercises at the bottom of the resort before setting out on the ridge to the Puy Redon. The weather was really coming in by then, but at no point are the guide, Vigouroux, or his clients worried, “He doesn’t make a mention of it and for us, there is no problem. At no time do I say to myself: “What he’s making us do is too hard for us.”
At the same time, six members of the Vichy Alpine Club were on another route on the mountain. Gaëtan confirms that they could at times see the other group. It appeared that four of the six in the group were making good progress while two were struggling, and falling behind. The two groups converged about 200-300 meters from the summit and continued on together as a group of seven, with the two climbers from Vichy, who had fallen behind, falling even further behind. In the end, being behind the leading group would save their lives.
Near the summit, conditions became quite difficult. The seven mountaineers in the lead group were forced to slow down. “There were terrible wind gusts, we couldn’t see two meters ahead. I couldn’t see the rope above me,” Gaëtan explained, “When I unhooked, I thought my cousin and the guide had slipped in front of me as I saw them falling. Then I was swept away too and I realized, it was an avalanche.”
Gaëtan admitted that he knew instantly how bad the situation was, stating “When I was swept away, I knew it was over for the guide and my cousin.” Gaëtan survived thanks to his presence of mind, managing to free an arm and his head, enabling him to retrieve his shovel and dig himself out of the avalanche. Gaetan described the traumatic moments after the avalanche hit.
“I couldn’t move anymore, I started to panic. Then I forced myself to think about positive things, to calm down. It took me two to three minutes to free my right arm. I dug, I took out the shovel, I dug again.”
Then, by some miracle, they located a female mountaineer from the Vichy group who was still alive. “With the guys from the PGHM [Mont-Dore High Mountain Gendarmerie], we shoveled to take everyone out. Then they found a woman still alive, I joined them to help them.” The unidentified female mountaineer from the Vichy group was said to be alive thanks to her avalanche airbag deploying.
