Climbing, who survived 400 foot fall, the 3 killed others

It was in the late afternoon and snowed lightly when four rock climbers, which stand up in Washington in the North Cascades Range between two peaks in the North Cascades Request three of your life.

When they climbed down, the four attached their ropes to a piton – a metal spike that was beaten in rock tears or ice cream and used for safe ropes – which had been placed by an earlier climber. As one of the men began to sink from the piton, he tore out of the mountain and sent all four fell on ice, snow and rocks.

They fell about 60 meters (60 meters) and landed in a sloping gorge, where they fell about 200 feet before they came to a standstill in a tangle of the rope.

Three were killed by the fall. One was passed out.

Anton Tslelykh Woke up in the dark. It was hours since autumn.

Over the course of several hours, he ended up from the tangle of ropes, equipment and rubble and changed over the rough terrain from rocks and snow with the help of a pimple-like ice tool to his car.

He drove for about 64 kilometers before he found a salary phone and asked for help in Newhalem, a non -legal community that is about an hour away. It was Sunday morning, eight hours since he regained consciousness.

From a hospital in Seattle on Wednesday morning, Tslelykh, which recovered from head trauma and internal bleeding, told the authorities, what had happened. He was in a satisfactory state in the HarborView Medical Center, which means that he was not in the intensive care unit, said Susan Gregg, director of media relationships at UW Medicine, an e -mail.

Tslelykh, 38, confirmed the theories of the authorities about what led to the death of his three companions, which were identified as Vishnu Irigireddy, 48; Tim Nguyen, 63; and Oleksander Martynenko, 36.

A three-person search and rescue team had reacted to the location of the autumn according to Tslelykhs call, said Cristina Woodworth, who headed the team and on Wednesday with the only survivor on the phone. The team had followed the coordinates of a GPS device that had worn the climbers who were shared by a friend of the men.

The rough terrain required a helicopter that removed the body one after the other, said Woodworth.

The respondents span the restored devices and tried to decrypt what caused the fall. They still found the piton in the ropes of the climbers, said Dave Rodriguez, forensic doctor of Okanogan County. Pitons are difficult to remove from the rock, he said, and the presence of the anchor on the rope was an indication of what happened.

In general, the establishment of a backup anchor is a usual practice among climbers, said Joshua Cole, a leader and co-owner of North Cascades Mountain Guides, who has been climbing in the area for about 20 years. It is still unclear whether the four had a backup.

The four climbers were friends, some of whom had previously climbed together and were quite experienced, Woodworth said and added that Tslelykh was “obviously very badly affected by it”.

Irigireddy was Vice President of Engineering at Fluke Corporation, a sample -Manufacturing Company, which published an explanation on Wednesday.

“Vishnu was an extraordinary leader, and his loss can be felt in our organization,” says the explanation.

Martyneken's wife Olga said on Tuesday in a Facebook post that her husband, whom she described as Alex, also left her son behind. She informed a link to a fundraising campaign to “help during the most devastating time of our lives”.

“I still can't believe that you are gone, my love.”

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Bedayn is a member of the Corps for the “Associated Press/Report” initiative for America Statehouse News. Report for America is a non -profit National Service program that journalists report in local news editorial offices about the undercovered topics.