'God give him strength'

2009-02-17 22:38

Buenos Aires - Argentina was gripped on Tuesday by a video posted on the internet showing the failed rescue of an Italian-Argentine mountain guide who died last month near the peak of the highest mountain in the Andes.

The images of Federico Campanini, a 31-year-old guide, seen feebly struggling in the snow as his rescuers tried to pull him to his feet, have sparked a public debate over the doomed operation.

Campanini's father, who uploaded the video after receiving it anonymously, has launched a lawsuit, accusing the rescuers of abandoning his son.

"They went looking for a corpse and they found a survivor," Carlos Campanini told reporters.

6 962 metres up

The video shows the struggle to bring the visibly weakened Frederico Campanini down from near the top of Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the Americas with a height of 6 962 metres.

He was declared dead on the night of January 8 of fluid in the lungs, hypothermia and dehydration days after getting caught in a storm on the way down from the summit.

A 38-year-old Italian woman in the five-person group he was leading, Elena Senin, also died.

In the video taken before Campanini's death, a rescuer says to the camera: "He's not moving. I've asked permission from the judge (to abandon him)."

It was not clear which judge was being referred to, but the rescuer used the Spanish "jueza", meaning a female magistrate.

'Get up, you idiot'

In the next shot, Campanini is seen trying to get up in the snow.

"That's it," the cameraman is heard saying.

"Get up, you idiot," another rescuer says.

"Go, damn it," a rescuer says. Then: "Move, idiot!"

The cameraman is heard praying. "God, give him strength, please."

Campanini weakly stirs and the rescuers pull vainly on a rope tied around his waist.

The debate on the operation has focused on the rescue team being seemingly unprepared to find the guide alive.

The team had no oxygen for him, nor a thermal sleeping bag or stretcher to carry him.

'Tell them he's dying'

The rescuers also had to climb back up to the summit to look for another path down - a difficult feat in itself in the thin atmosphere and one made all the more taxing by having to pull the listless guide.

"We've gone 10 metres, we can't go any further," the cameraman says after a cut in the video. The rescuers talk about setting up a tent. One says: "We are also fighting for our own lives."

A rescuer talks in his radio. "Tell them he's dying. He won't last much longer. In 40 minutes he'll be dead."

The cameraman is heard crying. A rescuer says: "Come on Frederico, you idiot."

Then the video shows the guide lying alone in the snow some distance away.

He was not moving. It could not be seen whether he was abandoned alive or dead.

- AFP