54. Verschollen - Olaf Salewski

And from the perspective, how should I put it, it was just beautiful, it was great. Then you take a selfie of the whole thing. Yeah, and then you just keep flying. But after that, shortly after, as I said, there's no memory left. And yeah, I then, as it looks, lost consciousness at about 3,700 meters. And then I flew a whole way further without consciousness. Until then, how should I say, at some point, well, the mountain was in the way.

Podz-Glidz, the Lu-Glidz podcast.

Stories from the cosmos of paragliding.

Today with Olaf Salewski and Lucian Haas at the microphone.

This 54th episode of Podz-Glidz is a narrated aviation nightmare. But, believe it or not, it's a true story. Olaf Salewski, a quite experienced pilot, goes on a flight in the Swiss Valais, then loses consciousness at a high altitude, crashes somewhere high up into rocky terrain, and then, seriously injured and presumably in shock, doesn't even think about making an emergency call. Instead, he begins the painful descent down the mountain. What follows are seven anxious days, missing in the high mountains. Everything Olaf experiences and, in a sense, survives during that time, the thoughts and feelings that occupy him in his solitude, what gives him hope, what makes him despair, and through what truly lucky turn of events he is ultimately rescued—all of that is incredibly exciting, and gave me goosebumps more than once during the recording.

I think it's very brave of Olaf to tell his bizarre, partly tragic, but also instructive story so openly. He does it in the hope that others can learn something from it.

If you enjoy the podcast and want to hear more in-depth stories from the world of paragliding from me in the future, please consider supporting my work as a patron. I don't fund Podz-Glidz or the associated Gleitschirm-Blog Lugaitz through ads, hidden sponsorships, or subscription fees, but solely through voluntary contributions from my listeners and readers. Payments are easily possible via PayPal or bank transfer. You can find all the necessary details on my blog Lugaitz, specifically on the Support page.

Olaf, you went to Switzerland in September 2020. Why?

Yeah, I had planned another vacation in September before the flying year was more or less supposed to end for me. I had planned to go to Switzerland again with a group, to get to know a new flying area. And I was on my way there on Saturday the 12th and wanted to meet up with a group there

meet up. What do you mean by "with a group"? Did you already know them, or was it just a classic "I-see-travel" thing that you book and then meet up there on-site to see who's all there?

No, I knew them; I'd already been with that organizer before, I'd had, let's say, three organizers in total. I participated in the events and was actually relatively satisfied up until then, and there weren't any incidents. Everything was basically always okay with them. So I didn't feel uncomfortable or anything like that. It was actually like always, I didn't need much guidance in that regard, because I basically only did it for that kind of support just to get to know a new flight area, to be able to pick up on some of the local customs better without having to get too involved or get a bit injured. When I have to deal with a flight area like that, it's always the easy way for me to get to know the new area.

You've been flying for quite a while now, as far as I know. Do you still need those XC seminars, or why—I mean, what is it? Why do you book something like that when you already have the experience you have? Give me a quick bit of background.

For me, it was mainly about getting to know the flying area. I'd say it was completely new to me there in Switzerland too. Where was that? If I go to Austria, for example, that was in Fisch. In Fisch. In the Fischertal. So, Valais. On the Aletsch Glacier.

High mountains, high Alps. Exactly. A really nice cross-country flight area.

Exactly, a really nice cross-country flight area. I said, man, why don't you organize a group again? Because I don't need it for my flying skills, but rather just to get some background knowledge about the terrain. Like what the wind conditions are like there again, and what one should perhaps pay attention to. That was actually the main reason.

So you drove to Switzerland and the next day this XC seminar started. What was the plan for that day?

So my plan was basically, to be honest, I always approach this whole thing a bit haphazardly. I don't plan out a 100% flight from A to B because, as I said, I didn't know the flight area. I just thought, okay, take what you can get. And I have no problem going off-course or making an outlanding. That's not something I'm afraid of. I said, take the day as well as you can, as far as it's feasible, and try to get as much out of it as possible. It worked out pretty well in the end. I think we didn't actually get up the mountain until about ten or half past ten. I had to wait a bit and then actually timed it well to see when the thermals were finally through. You could start, so that you could stay up there and not, as I said, sink immediately and be able to use the day properly.

How were the conditions like once you took off? Was it beautiful September autumn flying or heavy thermals? What was it like?

I can only speak to my own impression, so I also thought it afterwards during the flight, it was a beautiful day, just as you just described it. It was a beautiful autumn day with no, I'd say, crazy thermals. In my opinion, it was well-balanced thermals. I'd say the visibility was good. We had few clouds. The base was at, I'd say, around 3,700, 3,800 meters. So it wasn't very rough. There weren't any major mountain or valley winds either, in my opinion. At least from my feeling. And it actually looked very, very good for the day. So not in the sense that you'd say, "now it's going to be such a strenuous flight day," but it was actually, I'd say, a really nice cross-country flight day.

That all sounds great. But somehow, this day ended up becoming your day of fate. What happened?

Yeah, that's really it. So I'm completely normal, as I said, I caught a good launch time, as I just mentioned. It went, let's say, well upwards. I didn't have any problems getting up to just under the base relatively quickly. Then I headed east, let's say, towards Gerstenhörner and was making really good progress, without any problems, always staying relatively high up too. And yeah, I made it all the way to about Gerstenhörner. Then the mountains were a bit too high, because the base was only at 3,700. I turned around again. Completely normal. And I was more or less already on the way back to the launch site, towards the landing field.

I hadn't decided yet if I'd go any further. If things had gone well, I would have kept going. But then at some point on the way back, I... how can I put it? I can't remember from a certain point onwards because, from the looks of it, I must have passed out. Passed out? Yeah, I lost consciousness. Just gone? Just gone. I had... the weird thing is, I even took some photos right before. What do you see in those photos? You can see it with me. I took a selfie, like, of the landscape. And from the perspective, how can I say... yeah, it was just beautiful, it was great. Then you take a selfie for the whole story. Yeah, and then it just keeps flying. But after that, shortly after, as I said, there's no memory left. And yeah, from what it looks like, I lost consciousness at about 3,700 meters.

And then, still unconscious, I flew a whole way further. Until then, how should I put it, at some point, well, the mountain was in the way.

So you flew into that mountain unconscious? Yes. Probably. But you can't remember it at all? No. When did you come to again, or when were you conscious enough to say, "Yeah, hmm, where am I now?"

That was relatively late. I'd say I'm missing a whole period of about three and a half hours. It's just completely gone. It hasn't come back, not even until now. You have to ask, do you remember anything again? I have to say, no. Nothing has come back, not even remotely anything. There weren't any fragments you could remember, nothing at all. I can only remember that at some point I must have been standing there. I wasn't in the glider anymore. I can't remember how I might have unbuckled myself, how I took off the helmet, how I put on a, I'd say, a glider cap. None of that is there. There's no memory of it. I don't know what I said to him either. And the helmet, I somehow have no memory at all of where it even is. I don't know. And also, it did hurt in some places on my body, and it hurt quite a bit.

And on my head, I only noticed later, after I somehow felt the cap, that there was something hard on top of it. And then I also noticed on the cap that the hard part had come from a relatively large head wound. It was about 20 to 25 centimeters long, and it was actually dried blood.

Was a real laceration then?

Yeah, a proper laceration is a good way to put it. I'd say it was about 25 centimeters long; it was already a bit more than just a small laceration. I think, and I'll just say this upfront, if I had come to the hospital right away, they might have stitched it up. But as I said, by the time they found me—but we'll get to that later—it was, I'd say, already relatively late for that, I think.

So you're saying you're missing three and a half hours. When you woke up, or rather, became conscious again, you were somewhere, your helmet was gone, and your gear was somehow already packed up or something?

No, it was just lying there somehow. But I can't remember, like I said, how it was lying. I then somehow, because it was getting dark, just gathered the gear up and, let's say, roughly stuffed it into the pack bag. But only, as I said, the glider. Not the harness. Why not? I can't say. I stood there and, for a long time, I still had the feeling, even later in the hospital, that I was just a bit out of it the whole time. That's why I can't tell you why I did or didn't do certain things. I can't tell you because it was getting darker and I just gathered it up, whatever was in the...

...roughly went. Did you understand anything at that moment? As far as it can even be traced back. That you're saying, oh, I've had an accident, and did you then say, okay, where's my phone? I have to call someone now and let them know, I'll dial 112 or whatever.

Yes, exactly, it's good that you're bringing that up, but that's exactly the point. I can't tell you why I didn't do that in that specific situation.

Didn't do it.

You were lying there. I was already standing, or sitting, I can't tell you, but as I said, I'm out of the harness somehow, I have to be. And then I stood there and, as I said, I just gathered myself. At that point, I had no thoughts at all, I don't know why, about picking up the phone, which also took some damage. So, let's just say the radio, the vario, that was all broken. The phone was also, let's say, in quotation marks, broken. It had a crack in the display, but fortunately, it still worked. And I can't tell you why at that moment I didn't, as you so nicely put it, just place the emergency call and say, "Guys, help here." That kind of stuff. No idea. I do have to mention, however, that when I drove to Switzerland, I was already having some problems with my network provider because the thing with the flats and all that didn't work out the way we had imagined.

But just as a side note, that's why I was already a bit annoyed, also regarding the connection with my wife, which we'll definitely come back to later, about her not missing me at some point and all that. And we already had problems there. We had problems at the beginning because she had no signal and the network setup didn't work, and that was a different story later on, which also led to...

But that's just a side note, and that's why I was already a bit annoyed, also regarding the connection later on—which we'll definitely come back to—to my wife, that she eventually didn't miss me and stories like that. And we already had problems there. We had problems at the beginning because she had no signal and the network setup didn't work, and that was a different story later on, which also led to... Unfortunately, that's where you landed or crashed or at least where you woke up and slowly realized where you were on that mountain. So, at what altitude roughly? You said that aerodynamically you were at 3,700, then there's a long gap. Maybe you're still somewhere there. You

are you still somewhere there

glided in front of you, but at some point you must have hit this mountain, yeah, really crashed into the mountain, more or less. Right. What was it? Was it a meadow? Was it right against the rock or what?

It was really as it looks, it was like a scree field where there were larger stones and smaller stones. So, at most, it was a slight scree field, and I ended up somewhere—I'd say reaching land is a good way to put it now. I basically crashed into it, more or less, and then woke up. So it was really on the mountain, it was at an altitude of, I'd say, about 3,200 meters. That was the altitude where I crashed. I can basically say that's almost exactly 3,200 meters, because later, where I stayed for longer, I did some research, and it was around 3,000 meters where I was. That fits relatively well with the distances and the altitudes.

You said it was already afternoon. It was probably starting to get dark. Exactly. What did you do then? What was your plan? You didn't make an emergency call. What did you do instead? I mean, what was your idea? What did you want to do? Yes, go down.

I'm saying "down" because I'm saying "up" was just a field of debris; I'd say there was nothing there in the end. In the Swiss mountains, I thought, okay, you have to get down from here now, and that's exactly what I did. And then, as I just said, I simply took my gear and rolled down the mountain, because I couldn't carry it, as I had sustained an incredible number of injuries. So carrying it wasn't possible; I just tumbled down this field of debris, which was also relatively steep. The

Equipment? The equipment. Or rather, you said you only packed the glider into the bag. Did you leave the harness up there or something? No,

I took the harness too. I then rolled down from this scree field, always keeping it separate. Crazy. At night, I didn't have a flashlight, so I took my phone and used the flashlight function to find the gear I had rolled down, which would always roll a bit further than I could see in the dark. I really had to use the phone, or rather the phone's flashlight function, to search for the gear that kept rolling down. Sometimes it rolled 20, 25 meters, even 30 meters, and I had to keep searching for it. One piece would roll a bit to the right, the other a bit to the left, and it wasn't exactly easy through the rocks and stones, so I always had to gather the gear back together at night that had rolled down.

so that I could keep rolling them further down. I myself was always on all fours, I'd say, more or less on my belly, sliding, gliding, crawling down that scree field until eventually, yeah, until it finally got light. Yeah. And then I, how should I put it, reached a sort of slight plateau where there were some larger rocks, but where it was already a bit flatter at the corner, where you could have, I'd say, started again, theoretically.

You're saying that where it got light again—that whole thing of running down, throwing off your gear, tumbling down, and crawling after it, you did that all night?

Yes, that had a

took the whole night.

That really took the whole night until I finally got down to the, let's say, the end of the scree field, where it finally became flat; that took the whole night. Because, as I said, I couldn't—I'll say it upfront—the injuries I learned about in the hospital were that my pelvis had been fractured in multiple places, that some transverse processes had broken off—there were four of them that broke off—I had a liver tear, and then that 20, or rather 25-centimeter head wound with a slight chin injury as well. And accordingly, my speed probably wasn't all that fast when coming down that mountain, at least the scree field.

You must have been in insane pain. I mean, a hip fracture and then crawling down a scree field, and then things—if you say throwing things down—those are all movements, too; you always have to lift a weight. For example, what did you have as gear? Yes. And as a somewhat experienced long-distance flyer, you probably fly with a classic lying harness, which also has its own weight and so on. Is

like that? Yes, that's how it was, exactly. That's why, like I said, I couldn't carry it. I could only keep it on the ground, whenever I managed to gather it all together, and then keep tumbling down. Because carrying it just wasn't possible with the gear. It wasn't an option. And the pain, yeah, it was really there. And it wasn't minor either, looking back at it now. It was very, very painful.

And during all that time, also throughout that whole night, did it never occur to you to say, like, stop, something's wrong with me. Or with the whole situation, that I should just call for emergency services, even if they might not be able to pick me up here until tomorrow morning.

No, strangely enough, that thought never even occurred to me in that situation.

That's crazy. It's like, yeah, probably like a shock reaction of the body, where he just doesn't want to face it in that moment, but just switches into survival mode.

Exactly, where he then just—I guess he says it too—that it just works, and he just puts together the things he's practiced in his head and says, just do it.

So you crawled down this slope and ended up on some kind of slight plateau where you could have taken off. Did you actually think about flying down from there?

Yeah, honestly. It got bright and I said, here you are. Now we're relatively high up. I said, okay, yeah, walking down won't work. By the time you get down there, it'll take forever and stuff like that, and you think about getting somewhere as quickly as possible. I really laid out this paraglider there, put on the harness, and tried to actually get the glider ready to launch again. But I think I really tried to do the whole thing there all day, laying out the paraglider. But it was basically... because of all the cords and lines and maybe also because of my not-so-clear consciousness at that point, I just couldn't manage to get the paraglider back from the cords and the lines in a way that I could have launched.

It was still a bit twisted and stuff like that. I also assume that a lot of it happened because of the constant rolling down. It's getting more and more twisted and more tangled and things like that. And I really tried almost the whole day there on this plateau... to make this paraglider flight-ready again. But as I said, I didn't succeed. And then, like you say, eventually, more and more of the, I'd say, this awareness, maybe the real awareness, kicked in, where I said, man, only

make that call.

But that was really only at the end of this, let's say, second day. You'd been trying all day to untangle your lines, which didn't work. And then at some point you said, okay, now I should make an emergency call.

Exactly in that direction, exactly. But I could only figure that out later because I checked with my wife. Because I couldn't make sense of it on the phone. But she was like, that SMS must have come in. It was around 4 p.m. or something, around 3:30 p.m. I probably wrote an SMS accordingly, to her and also to someone from that group. But I have zero memory of even that SMS I sent to my wife, that I sent her anything at all. All I can remember is that I just wrote to someone from the group. Not that I need help, but even there, strangely enough, just that I have back problems and that I'm not joining anymore.

That means you basically just signed off from the group. And they assumed, oh, Olaf, for whatever reason, has back pain and isn't coming anymore.

Something like that. He was a bit surprised that there were probably so many... He told me afterwards that there were probably so many spelling mistakes in that text I wrote. Yeah, and then I assume the group figured he probably wasn't going to be part of it anymore.

And what did you write to your wife? Did you just write, "Hey, I have back pain"?

Yeah, exactly, in that sense. I probably just forwarded it somehow, maybe. But as I said, it was only about the back problem and that I was out of flying for the time being. And after that, the phone was unfortunately dead. I couldn't send more... I couldn't send any more than those two texts.

Just to make sure I understand, you climbed down there on the second day. You sent two texts, but you didn't say, "I absolutely need help," you just said, "I have back problems and I'm not flying anymore." That was all; you couldn't tell from those texts that you were stuck somewhere on the mountain in a real, absolute emergency.

No, well, I think you wouldn't have been able to tell that from that SMS, exactly.

Okay, now it's the second day, it's afternoon. His phone is dead, you're sitting at a launch site from which you can't take off. Your glider is all tangled up and you're slowly realizing that you're in an emergency situation. What happens next?

Then, since it was already relatively late that day, I didn't need to think about it any further. I'd say, I had tried the thing with the paraglider. It doesn't work, so it wasn't launchable in that sense or I just couldn't get it to work at that point. Yeah, going anywhere else at night wasn't an option, so I said, okay, you've got the paraglider here. There was this somewhat larger rock on this plateau where I said, okay, then you have to stay here for a night. I then tried to make the best of it; I also had one or two more heat packs for that day for the gloves I'd packed just in case. I said, man, it's going to be relatively cool tonight, you'll open them when it gets dark and then wrap yourself in your paraglider afterwards.

That you're a bit protected, like with a blanket and stuff like that, and I did it that way. I spent the night there in that paraglider, huddled under the paraglider, let's say, snuggled up a bit so it would be a bit warmer during the night, and I spent the night there.

Did you sleep at all, or is it like they say, with the pain or other situations, you actually stay awake all night, huddled somewhere on the rocks under your paraglider?

Yeah. It's like, as I said, because of the pain—I mean, I don't think you can sleep through it, because as I said, if you lie slightly wrong, it hurts, of course. So I did wake up a few times in between, but I probably also had a few moments, let's say, where I slept, yeah. Despite the situation, despite the cold, where I also woke up at night because of the cold, woke up because of the pain, but I think overall I might have been able to sleep or rest for maybe an hour or two at a time.

I mean, you also worked through the night before that, by making your way down that slope. At some point, your body probably just falls into a deep sleep on its own in between. Now you've slept through the night, the next morning the sun comes up, you're still up on the mountain, you know you don't have a phone anymore, you're probably slowly starting to understand the emergency situation you're in. What were you thinking then? Were you saying, "Shit, I'm lost up here," or what do I have to do?

So that's really when that survival instinct kicked in. I'd say, just look at the situation, what do we do with it, how do you possibly manage this now? Because I mean, being picked up wasn't an option at that point, because who would find me here, who would somehow look for me in that sense? I have no idea, I said, okay, good, there's only one option for you, somehow keep descending. The options were relatively difficult to descend because where the launch site was, it went down relatively steeply to one side, you couldn't go down there because that was actually near the Aletsch Glacier, where I then got down. And there was more or less only one direction, not directly the shortest way down into the valley, but I had to more or less go along the slope, where it went slightly further downhill.

That's really it, that survival instinct kicked in. I'd say, what is the situation now, what do we do with it, how do you manage to get out of here? Because I mean, being picked up wasn't an option at that point, because who was supposed to find me here, who was supposed to look for me in that direction? I have no idea. I said, okay, good, there's only one option for you, somehow keep descending. The options were relatively difficult because, where the starting point was, it went down quite steeply to one side, you couldn't go down there because that was actually near the Aletsch Glacier, where I eventually got down. And there was more or less only one direction, not directly the shortest way down into the valley, but I had to more or less go along the slope, where it then went slightly further downhill.

Just for the sake of understanding, your gear is up there, probably still sitting there. Did you have anything to eat with you, or were you already out there for 24 hours without food? Because you said you'd already finished off those two muesli bars on the plane or something like that?

Yes, that's exactly how it was. I mean, up until then, I didn't actually need much; I never had any issues, let's say, with fluids or having too little. I had taken a water bottle with me, a three-quarter liter bottle, which had always been enough until I had problems with it, and of course, it was empty on that first day I was on this plateau. I was lucky, let's say, that there was a slight trickle of glacier water coming down, and that worked out relatively well. So, I drank my water bottle first and then just used that trickle from the glacier. Before I headed down further, I refilled my bottle and then continued down.

There was obviously no food. I mean, there was nothing there.

So, further down, you only took what you had on you, plus a water bottle in your hand, more or less?

Exactly. Just what I was wearing and that one water bottle.

The terrain was rugged, meaning there was no hiking trail; you were just going straight through the forest and over the rocks. You basically had to drag yourself along for a long time, I guess you'd have to say. It probably all went pretty slowly.

Exactly, it all went pretty slowly because every step, I'd say, every misstep, every, let's say, rolled ankle on some rock or some stone was, of course, hellishly painful. So it was really, I'd say, at a snail's pace, just very, very slowly down, as far as it was possible. For as long as it took until I was somewhere up above in the distance, in my opinion. Yeah, that's relative.

For a

snail, if you say you were

When you're traveling as a snail, it's probably true that distances you think are already very far aren't actually that far for a snail. But you saw something or somehow saw something hopeful and said, I have to get there?

That's exactly it. I saw it from above, and from a distance, it looked like little huts. I thought, oh man, that looks great, man, in that direction. They called it that, I tried not to go any further that way, and I did that too. But in hindsight, it turned out to be a fallacy. It just happened to look like huts. It was some kind of weather observation station, so to speak, from the University of Zurich, which I found out later, which was monitoring the other side of the site where landslides were occurring. You could also see that there, that landslides had already happened, and they apparently set up a station to keep an eye on that.

So I went over there. But yeah, well, it wasn't a hut at all; there was just a solar panel, an aluminum box, and a camera and some measuring device standing there. That was pretty much it. So, nothing like a hut.

Nothing with a roof over your head or anything, just like you said, sort of like a weather station.

Exactly, like a weather station or something. When I got there, I said, oh well, no cabin. But then, of course, I gathered a bit of hope again because I figured a weather station might have something. Then I looked at what kind of instruments were installed. There was a camera installed and it was like a large aluminum box. There were some pieces of paper, cardboard boxes of some materials still inside. And I said, yeah, what are you doing? Are you trying to make yourself noticed somehow? Because there was a camera on it. But I didn't know exactly what kind it was. It looked more like, yeah, like, when surveyors have a measuring station, like when they're measuring some railings. It was an apparatus roughly with, I'd say, like a bucket on top with holes cut into it. The thing they built there was actually pretty funny.

And I thought, okay, then see how you can make yourself noticed. And there was this aluminum box, it wasn't locked, it was also relatively large. It had a battery in it and, like I said, this whole satellite transmission thing. And yeah, then I took out one of those cardboard things. There was something with it, there was also some tools in there. I took a screwdriver, and I scratched "need help" into this cardboard thing. And then I held the whole thing in front of that camera. I posed for it and stayed there for a while until I was of the opinion that it must have been recorded and transmitted by now. And yeah, I thought, okay, maybe that's just a sort of auxiliary term, that maybe someone will notice. And then afterwards, or when I was finished with that, I thought, now just pull out a plug here, assuming everything has been transmitted, just pull out one more plug.

...this whole transmission thing. Because then I thought, if you pull a plug somewhere, then someone will probably see, if it's being transmitted permanently, oh, something's broken now. We need to take care of that.

So that was your hope. You basically sent out an emergency call via a cardboard box—you know, via scribbled cardboard. It says, "need help." And then, when the feed cuts out, someone looks at it and says, "What happened there?" And then they look and maybe find this image. How did you figure out that your recording was probably being transmitted? Could you see something, like an LED blinking, and you'd say, "Ah, it's sending right now," or something? Or was it just a gut feeling?

No, no, I didn't just do that once, as I said, I did it several times. Because that camera that was on there always had a sort of time cycle. So it always makes the movement that it... well, it probably does anyway... It's always taking pictures from different positions and then it runs around again and starts from the beginning again after a certain timeframe. I always watched that first. Like, how long does it take, roughly, for that camera in there to drive through all those points to observe them and then return to the home position. And based on that, I did it twice. This cycle, and then, or three times, and then I pulled out that one plug. At which point I was firmly convinced that, well, three times,

then it had been transmitted just to be safe, and only then, as I said, did I simply pull the plug

had. And when you plugged it back in, did it really reboot again and start over and continue with your program?

Exactly, you could then, as I said, see a connector, that it had rebooted, that it started blinking and things like that. And I assumed then, yeah, that it probably reached there at some point. And also that error message you get there.

So, that was this camera, like your symbol of hope. You're saying, I still have some contact with the outside world. I might be completely off in the Arle Glacier, back there somewhere on the mountain, but there's a camera here. I can say I need help. And with that, it was also clear: okay, if you're probably at this station, and they know where this station is, then you have to stay at this station. That was also the

thought thought

Wait a second, wait a second, wait a second. First day, second day, third day, fourth day. That means you already expected to have to endure being next to that station on the mountain for several days. Did you know that?

I didn't know that, but I did account for the worst-case scenario. Because the best-case scenario would have been that someone sees it immediately if I do that, they alert someone right away and send a helicopter out immediately. That would, of course, be the optimal version. But I know how it is, like I just said. First, someone has to look, then that person might have to pull up their program. They have to look at it, they have to see it. Then they might need a day just to organize something. Yes, we get a helicopter, we don't get one. And with stories like that, I calculated that it would just take a bit longer than just one day.

Okay. Now you sat up there. How many days did you end up sitting there next to that station?

Yes, next to the station—I have to put that in quotation marks now—on the way to this station, which isn't far, I think maybe 100 meters, I had to get over about two more small, yeah, rock formations like that. And there, I happened to see that one of them had formed a kind of, yeah, a rock overhang, a mini-cave. I had seen that as well.

And just to mention that beforehand. And right at the station, I spent exactly one night under a somewhat larger rock—where you couldn't really lie down, but you could crouch a bit underneath so it wouldn't be quite as drafty. Right at the station, I have to say. And then I...

So, for the next few nights, you moved again, so to speak.

Yeah exactly, for the next few nights I just moved those 100, 150 meters again and then every night I squeezed myself into that mini-cave, that mini-rock overhang cave, where I said you're a bit better protected from the wind. And then you just keep going there.

You didn't have your paraglider anymore, you'd already left it up there. That means you had nothing left to cover yourself with or anything. Wasn't it probably bitterly cold by then? Yeah. It was good weather, like you said, at least on the first day. But probably the next few days were also relatively good, like a nice high-pressure system in the autumn. Exactly.

You say it was still relatively good. Well, the weather just got worse from day to day. You could see it, it wasn't as good as the first day anymore. In the meantime, I also saw paragliders flying over me, and I also shouted out at times, but I can say now, you can just forget about that. So I say shouting and waving and all those stories, that's soon a lost cause. Unless there's really exactly one nearby, maybe someone looks exactly that way, and stories like that. I also saw helicopters flying endlessly, the ones that had already been working there. And I'd say, it was already September, it wasn't really peak season anymore. And where I crashed, there was also a nature reserve, which he mentioned earlier. So there aren't any hiking trails going through there.

Yeah, and then I was lying there. And from that box, because you just said it was relatively cold—yeah, it was very cold. So I'd guess it was around five degrees up there at night, and in that box, where I found that cardboard, I also found some other paper. Yeah. I took that and tucked it really deep into my clothes, sort of as a heat pad, everything that was there—the boxes, the cardboard boxes, the papers. I took really everything and tucked it under my clothes.

that it wasn't that cold at night. Like, a real survival instinct kicks in then. But that means you've already become relatively clear-headed by that point. Yeah, also that you realize how this camera works, what I can maybe do, how I can influence it and stuff. So you have to have a really good grasp of the situation you're actually in by then. Now you're sitting there in your cave—I'll just call it a cave for now—and you know, okay, this is maybe the second night, I might have to spend a third here until they come by accordingly. What kind of thoughts do you have in a situation like that, when you say, I'm here without contact, except for this weird camera, but otherwise I can't make myself noticed, I'm sitting here alone on the mountain, I probably won't be able to get down from here on my own.

What do you think in situations like that?

So you think, well, the first thing I thought of too was, yeah, first of all drinking, somehow getting to water. That's, let's say, mainly, well, that's the stupid part, just surviving. I kept looking there for... Oh, there's something there, but in the station, unfortunately, like on the first day, there was no more stream, there was nothing at all, right, no kind of mini mountain streams or anything else, there was nothing nearby. And that was my first thought, because the water bottle I had dragged down from that stream was empty by now, and I looked, searched, I'd say that's the first thing I have to do, drink. Drinking is vital for survival, and I searched, searched, searched, but found nothing.

And until I just happened to find, while searching and looking, where I also crossed over these two, yeah, slight rocky elevations again, in a grassy niche, I found a small puddle of water. It was about 5 cm high, I'd say, with a diameter of about 20 cm. There were two of them, which had been in different positions. One was a bit, yeah, how should I put it, a bit dirtier, more fibrous in the water, the other was a bit cleaner.

And I just, yeah, took the one that was a bit cleaner. Then I thought, yeah, how do you get the water out of here now? That was the next problem, because I couldn't dip my water bottle in there, that didn't work. With my hands, I'd just stir up too much, yeah, I'd say, too much of those algae I'd formed. It was all a bit of a mess, and then I found, like I said before, some tools in that box, that aluminum box. So I took a screwdriver and I permanently etched around this plastic water bottle I had with that screwdriver, just kept turning it, turning, turning, until I really, very slowly, scraped away that plastic, let's say, with the screwdriver until I could basically split the bottle in two.

And I was then able to make, more or less, a small cup out of that bottle, like a flat one, and then I could slowly dip it into the, yeah, the puddle, slowly into the puddle to get the water out. And fortunately, I was then able to drink that.

Just from the idea of it, the puddle wasn't next to this station, the puddle was somewhere else. You climbed over there, you found it, then you realize, okay, I can't get my bottle under there. I have to think about this. Ah, then I have to think, what can I do? Ah, there was tools back there, which means you dragged yourself back to this station. You took out this screwdriver and then started crafting this cup and so on. That was something like it. Probably this dragging back and forth, 100 meters was for you with pain and all that, it wasn't like, I'll just walk back and forth in two minutes, but it was probably an hour's work or something. How am I supposed to imagine that?

It's always really about the consideration of how far you'll go, how far you'll walk, because what can you endure right now—the pain or the will to survive—how far will you go? That thought comes up, and what can you do? And it sounds a bit stupid, but what is it worth to go back there again, to get another drink or not? How to make yourself noticeable again, in that cave—I mean, in the cave I really, as I said, only stayed at night, because during the day I said you have to be outside in case someone flies by or comes by. I also really shouted all day, called for help in between, permanently, so I'd say, over and over and over again, in the hope that someone would hear or see someone, just by chance.

And yeah, that was the reason. And like you said, it really always took a very, very long time to get back to those puddles, those little ones. It was always so mentally difficult, where exactly were they now? Because it was a bit, I'd say, like flat mountain grass that you couldn't immediately see as a puddle from a distance. You had to say, man, where exactly was the puddle now? And the point, and it was always a bit of looking and searching again. Well, on the third day, it was always a bit easier to, I'd say, locate them faster than after the second day.

Yeah, that was the difficulty, and like I said, on the first day, as you already mentioned, I spent it right at the station, and for the other three nights that followed, I stayed in this rocky outcrop. I also had, like I said, a small pair of pliers with me, and so it wouldn't pull on the rock ledge, I took a few bites of this scrub that was there—it looked a bit like blueberry bushes, fortunately, because I ate those too, but I don't know if they were actually any, I can't tell you; there were about three different types of mini-berries growing on the slopes, they weren't bigger than about half a centimeter, and I said, man, you have to try these, but of course they tasted like nothing, but I said, somehow you have to get some fluids into you now,

and I tried to take as many of those, yeah, let's call them mini-blueberries, as many as I could, but I'm telling you, until I had a handful—that took forever, of course, because it was already September, so the pollination I think wasn't that great anymore; in the summer it might have been nicer. And like I said, the water wasn't, well, let's say crystal clear; you have to let it settle a bit in the cup so you don't just drink all the algae with it. And that was basically all I could eat.

What does stagnant mountain meadow puddle water taste like?

So, I'd say it tasted relatively neutral. To be completely honest, I imagined it would be worse; if it had tasted really musty, I wouldn't have drunk it, given the whole situation. That might come from my experience in the army, and I wouldn't have drunk it then. And stories like that, yeah, with the foil... they told me to always take as many blueberries as I could get from somewhere here, but as you already said, it was always very, very difficult because every path I took, I took a long time, and it was always associated with a lot of, a lot of pain. Even at night in this—I'll call it a cave—it was just that I always woke up at night, around two, I'd guess now. I wasn't, I wasn't out for long, I just was simply frozen from the cold, yeah, really frozen, I was shivering from the cold, and then I woke up because of that too.

You're saying you estimate it was around two, but you didn't have a watch on you either. I had

didn't have a watch either.

That means it was really like living into the day in a certain way, absolute survival mode—getting water in between when you say you need some again, eating berries, sitting around, calling for help, watching paragliders... I mean, how often did there... are there situations in between where you just really collapse inside and say, shit, I'm lost?

That didn't just happen once; it happened, how should I put it, quite often. Of course, on the first, second, and third day, you can still manage, but I'd say the longer you're up there, the harder it gets. I'd say, in this situation, it became, yeah, very, very, yeah, stressful at some point, where you say, okay, what happens back home now, no one is going to find you. Like, yeah, it sounds a bit like, what happens back home now, no one is going to find you. How do you end up here? Are you going to, I'd say, then, yeah, I'd say, starve, die of thirst, the body just stops cooperating somewhere, what will the end be like then? Are you just going to fall asleep and not wake up the next day, and stories like that? So you do start thinking about what happens back home, how they're dealing with the situation. Will they, I'd say, ever even find you at some point?

Maybe you can determine the last location from the phone at some point and say, okay, we have to go looking from there, will they ever find them? So, those thoughts go through your head. Earlier too, like, what happens at home? And, sorry, that is just very, very difficult.

Yeah, I can imagine. Now, you just mentioned the phone's last location. Which, of course, immediately raises the question: okay, last location, what's the deal? Did you have any other kind of instruments with you? Live tracking? Live tracking, a Farnet vario, which maybe could have sent its position or something else?

somehow? Yes, I obviously had that with me. I had a trio from Skytrax with me, with Farnet and Flam. So like I said, it was all broken. It's all... oh, upon impact, it was basically smashed to pieces. The radio flew apart, the vario didn't work anymore, I couldn't turn it on either. So only the screen still worked, it would just light up, but you couldn't see anything on the screen anymore in the story. And that, as I said, the only thing that still functioned reasonably well, was really, yes, the phone, which still worked for that time, which also had a crack in it, but where I could then send these SMS and use it as a flashlight. That was the only thing. And then I was, as I said, up there for those days and eventually started thinking, yeah, no one is coming here now.

That's what we just discussed. So, calculated by time, they look one day, organize one day, try to organize a U-driver one day, and on the last, fourth day, they should have actually arrived by then at the latest. But no one came. And I can say this in advance, as I mentioned, I only heard from them, from the station, just once—the police didn't even write to them again later—and I only heard something from them one more time when I wrote to them again, by which time I had already been home for quite a while, asking what's going on with it, and they just kept writing, "Yes, we first have to see who is responsible for this." And that was the last thing I ever heard from them, from the University of Zurich, and since then I've never heard anything from them again, neither before nor after, regarding what's happening with this station, that they said, "Oh yes, they pulled something out and maybe broke something"—I unfortunately never heard anything from them again.

You never even got a souvenir photo from them, like your camera shot, with your cry for help carved into the cardboard box.

No, never heard anything from them again, nothing at all. And then, as I said, after that fourth day, I'm just... yeah, I'm at that spot, I have to say. Like, no one is coming here, no one is picking you up. The only chance is really, no matter what happens, whether it's water or not, you have to keep going now, you have to keep descending, that's the only way, the only option you have.

It's like a real survival instinct kicks in and says, okay, this isn't enough, I have to keep going somehow, even if it costs me, but at least it increases my chances of maybe still meeting someone else.

Exactly, so you could see, let's say, where in the distance, I'd say, there were mountain stations, where I could observe all the time helicopters flying in—I don't know if they were delivering something or some construction materials—and I said, okay, in that direction, that's where you have to go, and from far away you could also make out a trail, but it was very, very far away. I don't know how many days it would have taken me to get there, no idea, but that was the only motivation to say, you have to get near there, maybe someone will hear the shouting if I get a bit closer, and then I really set off.

Before you set off, I mean, you had taken your photos and everything, did you also carve something else into a piece of cardboard and say you were gone or had headed in that direction, just in case someone came looking for you or something?

Yeah, I did that too. I had another note and put it in that box so they'd know what happened here and stories like that, so they wouldn't go looking for me somewhere else. I drew an arrow pointing in the direction I was going and stuff like that, so people wouldn't think I went in some other direction. So I did do that. What I also have to say, which was really funny and I completely forgot, is that I was only at this station for that one day, and in between, I'd hear what I'd describe as cowbells and thought, okay, there must be cows and stuff running around somewhere on the other side of the valley, and you always hear those bells very faintly every now and then. Yeah, and on that one day, I actually had goats visit me. Okay, mountain goats.

But I couldn't hear where they were coming from or where they were going. No idea. They were there for one day and then disappeared again on that same day. I also thought to myself, honestly, they then lay down there, were there for like, I don't know, one or two hours

and I said, like, if you come back the next day, I've actually already spent the night, you've got the screwdriver in your hand,

yeah, just let it be.

Yeah, I mean, it's like how you imagine it, like really lost on a deserted island and you have to survive. Exactly, you have to...

the weakest one you can get, I'd say for tomorrow, would be an option in an emergency—I don't know if I would have done it, but that would have been an option. I'd say it might have been the end of it, maybe.

Anyway, they didn't come back, they were gone, and so it just didn't happen in the end. But as I said, I came back there and set off again, trying to descend further at my own pace, whatever I could manage, and then, on the fourth day after being in the "Einstelle," it was already the fifth day up there in total.

and I tried to descend further and then, by complete and utter chance, I found a lonely bear hut. That gave me a little bit of hope again.

What do you mean by mountain hut? A real mountain hut, or just some, yeah, some bivouac shack up somewhere on the mountain that's really just an emergency shelter?

No, it was a real mountain hut. I later found out that it's apparently owned by a lordship, so it's kept up and maintained accordingly, and it's also used by a shepherd who looks after the sheep up there during the year.

so-called Blacknose sheep. But I only found that out later from the people who found me. And it's apparently inhabited for a few weeks every year.

But it wasn't occupied when you got there. It was empty.

When I got there, of course, no one was there. And they were, of course, locked as they usually are, so I thought, well, okay, how do you get in there? How do you do that? And I broke them open. I had to break open a key box on the door, found a key inside, and was then able to get into the hut.

Did you bring any tools with you from that other station, where you were like, okay, I might need that screwdriver?

What I took with me was the hammer.

Why the hammer?

I have no idea, I can't tell you why I took the hammer with me, but that was the tool where I said, that's the most sensible one, maybe also thinking a bit about the goats, I'd say, to hit one down. That's the easiest way.

Crazy. That means now, I mean, those are insane images that form in front of you. You're running down the mountain—well, crawling, dragging yourself somehow down this mountain—with a hammer in your hand. Yeah,

not in my hand, but

I had

I had it with me. I had it somehow, like, always on my person, I don't know if I had it attached to my thing there, I have no idea, I don't remember that exactly, but I said I had the hammer with me. And I said you can use the hammer for anything. It's the strongest tool you have there. Because you can't do much with a screwdriver. And I really did take this, this hammer with me. And yeah, but in the end, it didn't help me much anyway, whether I had the hammer with me or not. It didn't help at all until the hut or at the hut. They still had such a large iron piece at the hut. With that, I then managed to break open a key box to get this key out and was then able to open the door. That was also, let's say, my big advantage that I had there.

They also had something outside. There was even a kind of trough where water was constantly flowing. And well, of course I didn't expect a phone or things like that in a mountain hut. But it was, I'd say, relatively well-equipped for a mountain hut in my opinion. It had a small, old, ancient stove inside. There were some sleeping spots inside, I guess for some mountain hikers or for this mountain lodge, who take care of people going there to spend two or three days. So from that perspective, it was... I'd say, in my eyes at that time, already quite luxuriously equipped. Because, I mean, having a bed... there were some old sleeping bags inside, I'd say, to cover yourself with and things like that. That was... And a small mini-stove, like an old wood stove, to make it warm, was then really, really, yeah, luxurious at that moment for me.

There were also some leftovers inside that had probably been left behind. There was a bag of muesli, some old pasta, and stuff like that. Of course, I then took some of that for myself...

also just did that right away. That means you could cook, or did you have to chew the noodles raw? No, no, no. There

there were actually also some old pots and I tried to light a fire in the oven. It wasn't quite that easy at the beginning because the chimney flue was facing the wrong way. They had some kind of system where the opening that rotates with the wind was, of course, facing exactly into the wind when he tried to light the first fire. Naturally, the whole interior of the stove got completely filled with smoke.

It was like that, of course. When things are already going to shit,

then the next thing happens. Exactly,

that means if it's shit, it's full-on shit. Yeah, it didn't really work that well at first, but eventually it did. And before I got to this hut, I had to cross what was called the Driesbach. Before that, I had to cross another flat stream in the Alps, but I don't think it had a name. And of course, in the normal sense, your whole shoes and the entire structure got wet. Then the socks and clothes got wet too. I already knew that when I was walking through it, if I slip there, it's very, very difficult. I tried to pick out the flattest spot there. But as I said, I still got wet up to about my knees. And then in this hut, as I said, I lit the fire so that my things were fortunately

could dry out. So, at the very least, the hut was like a partial rescue. You had something to eat, it was warmer again, and you could get through the nights. Exactly. How much time did you spend at this hut then?

So, two days.

Because I saw that the weather was getting worse from day to day. And it was always blowing, so there was nothing left in terms of flight. In principle, the three days were already over. And I saw, okay, I just had to, the weather is getting, getting, getting worse. And they also had something that was really great. They had a solar panel in this cabin and a radio. So I could see the weather in Visanino. I could also hear the weather report.

What I had there was a little mini-radio, I'd say something like a suitcase radio. I could then listen to a bit, so I wasn't quite as alone, so to speak. I had a bit of a connection to the outside world. And I heard on the radio that the weather was going to keep getting worse. And I said, okay, yeah, you could still see it. And I said, so now you're on your second day here. And the weather is getting worse. And no one is coming. I shouted again. I also had binoculars there. I could look further with the binoculars. I could see a bit where I could go next. Where I could see other people on the other side of the mountain. I saw people, they were very, very tiny, but I could see them. And then, when I thought they were looking in my direction.

I also waved my red jacket. Or if a helicopter flew through the valley again, I'd wave like that, and stories like that. But as I said, I also shouted. But as I mentioned at the beginning, that didn't help at all. It's not even understandable from somewhere if you shout there. Someone really has to be nearby. And then maybe be able to determine the direction. Yeah, then I was there and said, the weather is getting worse. What are you doing now? Staying here is not an option. You have to keep going. And then I said, okay, good. So I have to, the next morning—that was Sunday, as I said—I decided that the next day I have to try again to get further down. I then, accordingly, for myself...

waved my red jacket too. Or if a helicopter flew through the valley again, I'd wave again and stuff like that. But as I said, I also shouted. But as I mentioned at the beginning, that didn't help at all either. It's not even understandable from somewhere if you're shouting there. Someone really has to be nearby. And then maybe you can determine the direction too. Yeah, then I was there and said, the weather is getting worse. What are you doing now? Staying here is not an option. You have to keep going. And then I said, okay, good. So I have to, the next morning—that was Sunday, as I said—I decided that the next day I have to try again to get further down. So I packed accordingly, what the food crack said was still with me. For how long, I have no idea how long I'd have to be out there. Until I found a path somewhere where someone could get through, I'd probably need another two days for that. And freezing outside at night again. In the end, it sounds stupid, but I didn't want to anymore. Because, let me say, these five days of freezing outside—that was actually enough for me.

Understandably. There was also some sort of...

old sleeping bag, and there was also an old backpack in the back. And then I said, you're taking all of that with you now. You're packing all of that in. Get everything ready on Sunday. I said if it's light the next morning, then I'll head out.

You say Sunday. If I understood correctly, your first flight was also on a Sunday. That means you'd already been on the mountain for a week. I'd already been on the mountain for a week. That's exactly it. And after a week, you say, okay, I have to leave my life-saving mountain hut now, because in the long run, this isn't a rescue, so I have to go further down. You shoulder your backpack. And then?

This little backpack I had, the one I'd packed. And I said, the next morning you just leave as early as possible, as soon as it gets light. And yeah, the rest of the day was already, I'd say around 4:30 p.m. And I said, okay, then you just sit here and you've also seen that there's another mountain opposite and a bit further away it had already rained a little, it was drizzling slightly, and then, I think, at that point—in hindsight, I have to say, the right decision—to want to do it that way. Yes, and then, quite by chance on that day, half an hour later, it was 4:30 p.m. in the end, 4:30 p.m. decided to do it that way. At 4:30 p.m., four hunters, Swiss hunters, actually came up there again.

You

Were you on your way, or did they come to the cabin?

No, they were, they came, they wanted to go to the cabin, they wanted to go again, and before the season was completely over for them, they came up and said we want to go hunting again up there and see. And they just happened to come up again on that day, completely by chance.

And they found you then?

They found me there. I told them what happened, where I fell and dragged myself over there. From there, they called for rescue relatively quickly. They were there very, very fast too. I'd say it took maybe fifteen, twenty minutes. Then the rescue helicopter arrived and I got into it, yeah, relatively quickly. So they didn't have to carry me or assist me; I could still walk there quite slowly myself. I got in, and then they flew me to the hospital, and that's where I actually first really knew what kind of injuries I had. Before that, I... yeah, I wasn't aware at all of everything that was actually broken.

Yeah, you don't really look inside your own body. What was it like, I mean, you probably told the doctors now, what was their reaction? Like, do they say, "What kind of miracle is this?" Or does it not happen to them every day that someone comes in saying, "Look, I've been hunkered down in the mountains for a week and I have a broken pelvis, a liver tear, and other stuff."

So they said quite clearly—I mean, for them, it was a stroke of luck that I survived, because they said that the fractures and things like that wouldn't have been life-threatening in the end.

If it had healed crookedly during that time or something, that wouldn't have been a big deal; they could have fixed all of that. But as I said, with the liver tear I had there, I was very, very lucky that it encapsulated relatively quickly. Maybe it was also... I'd say the fact that I didn't move around so much, couldn't do as much, precisely because of the other injuries I had, not being able to move much at the station—at that observation station, maybe—where I spent a lot of time lying down, not moving much, so that it could encapsulate relatively quickly and the bleeding wouldn't continue. Because otherwise, they said I would have bled out internally and there would have been nothing more they could have done. That would have been, in the end, well, the end.

How was that from your experience? You're being rescued, the rescue helicopter arrives—does a huge weight actually fall off your heart at that moment, or is it more like all that strength you had for a week before—you actually performed something superhuman if you imagine the whole thing—do you basically collapse and become a heap of misery in that moment, after not being one for a week?

Actually, not for me, at least. I mean, I was just happy to actually get out of there. It really is, like you said, a huge weight off your shoulders—having survived it again, being out of there, having been found, and that you're now, well, how should I put it, just, yeah, sorry, in safe hands, that you can say you survived.

Yeah, of course, that's really intense. How long were you in the hospital there in Switzerland?

Yeah, I was only in the hospital for another week, where they did all the corresponding examinations, because you have to consider that these bone fractures were already a week old. That means, in principle, it was already two weeks later. And as I said, they did a CT, an MRI, and, yeah, an ultrasound of the liver several times to see if it was really healing and if everything was running smoothly. And yeah, I have to say, it was good there, they did everything. They didn't have to operate on me. We didn't need to do anything. It all healed on its own again. They didn't have to fix anything. Here, when I was in Germany, I went to a specialist again. One thing is always the different opinions of doctors. One said, yeah, we want to operate on that again. The others said, yeah, no, we'll try to manage it like this.

They said that in the hospital too. If I'm very careful, even in Switzerland, don't move around much, no strenuous stuff, lie down a lot and things like that, then we might be able to avoid surgery. Which has actually proven to be true in hindsight. So I've managed to avoid surgery, let's say, on the hip. Everything has grown back together reasonably well. And yeah, I'm actually doing very well again accordingly. Now, after half a year, it's more or less without any major permanent damage. That's how I got through it. I still notice it every now and then, if I walk for a bit longer and things like that, then take a break and then start again, there's a bit of stiffness at the beginning.

But it's gotten much, much better. And the thing is, you keep getting a bit better. And I think that when a year has passed and I look back on what's still left, I'll think that I got off very, very well.

How did that go with your wife? You were in the hospital now. Did you call her to let her know? Like, "Hey, I was in the mountains for a week and now I'm in the hospital and I'm safe?"

No, that's... They... Actually, I already asked the hunters up on the mountain to call my wife and tell her that everything is okay. Because she assumed, as I said at the beginning, that we were having problems with the network provider. And then she also said, well, okay, problems, no problem.

I'm often in situations where they can't reach me, stories like that. Yeah, she's out with a group and then you just can't get through. Then everything is fine. They only really started to worry when the hunters called and said, "Yeah, we found a man," stories like that, and let me know, and then of course I started worrying.

Yeah, sure. But for that week, at least she didn't have to worry. You were getting hammered, but she didn't know that, she was... Exactly. He's out with his boys, having his fun, and actually, everything is wonderful.

Exactly. And since he's traveling in a group, he's safe anyway. And with stories like that, if something happens, then everything is... yeah, then everything is fine.

Basically, it's not really a bad solution, at least for your wife. Because otherwise, she probably would have been terribly worried.

Right, exactly. And

so she only had to worry about, okay, how are you doing now? But she knew you were already safe and in the hospital and all that, and that you were still alive.

That's exactly how it is. That's how it looks. Yes, and as I said, what I also wanted to mention—this decision to go down—was actually also the right call when the rescue team arrived, so going down on Monday, the next day, was the right decision. Because if I had needed two days—because it actually started snowing down to 1,300 meters when I was still lying in the hospital on Wednesday—it would have gotten significantly worse. Then I think, I don't know if I would have managed it in that form. Because the decision had to be made: if they hadn't come, to keep going down on Monday—I think that would have been the right decision too.

So, here's the thing. The whole incident—with the crazy story, the good outcome, and all that—it's been over half a year now. How have you dealt with it in the meantime? Is it something that still bothers you a lot, that sticks with you, where you find yourself thinking, "What could I have done better?" Do you dwell on it a lot? Or was it because you experienced it so intensely at the time and thought about it so much that, for you, all the steps are actually clear now? How do you see it today?

So, I'd say I think about it less now because it's just been so long. But as you said, exactly right, at the beginning you really think, what could you have done differently? You think about why it happened, how it happened. I was also, for a short time while I was in the hospital, to be honest, I'd actually already made peace with never wanting to go flying again and said I don't want to anymore. I really canceled everything. I opted out of everything. I said I'm not doing this anymore. I don't want those kinds of stories anymore, I'm not doing it anymore.

And I cancelled everything, because the equipment was also sitting on the mountain. That was the next thing. But at that point, it wasn't that important, because let's just say, I basically just sank, how should I put it, 6,000 euros in there, sitting up there. That's no small amount. And I then said, okay, I don't want to fly anymore. I'm not doing it anymore. But as I said, bit by bit, I also thought a lot about it. What exactly happened there? How could you have done it differently? What would you do differently next time? How can you do better if a situation like that were to happen? Again, how would you prepare for it today? What would you take with you? What kind of gear do you use to get more safety there? Were you satisfied with the provider in the end, that they behaved reasonably, as you would have actually wanted in such a situation?

And what kind of stories are there, what factors were combined there? And the ones that played a role, that led to it—I'm also talking physically—unfortunately, nothing more could be found out as to why it happened or if I lost consciousness. They couldn't figure that out in the hospital either, because it was simply too long ago. We had a CT scan, an MRI, but there was nothing to see, nothing to recognize.

And I'm still thinking about it a lot. I'm also still in contact with one of the hunters who found me. I still write to them and I already decided last year that I'm going to go up there again at some point,

to at least get the equipment out of there. And as I said, one of the hunters even offered to go up with me again, to support me, to help me. He said he knows the area quite well. He can help you out and we'll go up again and look for the equipment. Because I can't say exactly where it's located. I can only say roughly where it is. And I'm estimating about three days. That means one day up to the cabin, one day searching, and one day back down, also, to be completely honest, to mentally move on from it for myself. Because somehow, it sounds stupid, but there's still something of mine up there. This equipment. And even if it's no longer flyable, which I'm assuming is very likely, I really want it gone from there.

...to be able to just move on, as I said. And to be able to say, you got all that stuff out of there. You were there. There's nothing left of you up there. And you bring it down. Maybe I'll also get lucky and, as I said, be able to have the vario read out somehow again and see if there are any new insights into how far I flew without consciousness. The exact flight direction again and the altitude, so that maybe we can get a bit more out of the whole story. But I still think about it very often afterwards.

Let's talk a bit about the lessons you've drawn from this. For one thing, even though it's very difficult to understand or explain at all, what is your most sensible explanation currently for why you might have simply lost consciousness in flight?

Yeah, I think I talked about it later with the club. And then someone said, yeah, he knows a flight instructor who had something similar happen. He apparently took off, lost consciousness, but then woke up again during the flight and was able to land properly. And then I got all curious, and he said, yeah, they diagnosed him with so-called dehydration.

And then I tried to review everything and asked, like, what was it like for you? I mean, I also looked into things like altitude and stories like that, researched everywhere on the internet. Yeah, the so-called altitude sickness and stories about oxygen deficiency. But I'd say at 3,600 meters, that's not really the critical point or the critical altitude yet. It usually starts, they say, from 4,000 meters. I know that from my other sport too, and from back in the day with skydiving, and I said, okay, but it does get a bit thinner, and maybe on the first day I arrived, I might have drunk a bit too little, and I didn't drink that much on the day before the flight either, so those two factors could have just played together during that flight where I was also already out there for three and a half hours.

I hadn't drunk anything else until then, and that most likely could have led to me simply losing consciousness.

Well, you have to say, you're from Northern Germany. Yeah, exactly. The flatlands. Yeah. I don't know how high that is. Probably 60 meters, 80 meters, or something like that, what you have there. And then you drive to Switzerland to Fiesch within one day, go flying the next day, and you're at 3,700 meters relatively quickly. Those are probably also adaptation tasks the body has to perform, which you always think, yeah, that's relatively easy, but maybe especially in a combination with not drinking enough, maybe also a bit of lack of sleep and a strenuous journey beforehand and all that. So all that stuff you normally don't factor in, but which can ultimately be quite a strain on the body, and it can certainly happen that all of that comes together in a way that leads to that.

Your blood is a bit too thick because you haven't drunk enough and all that. And then you feel the altitude—where people say it only gets critical above 4,000 meters, it might already be critical at 2,000 meters.

Yeah, that's exactly how it is. Like I said, and it sounds stupid, but even then, like I said, yeah, I mean, I've done it before. I mean, I'm in the Alps, I'm basically down there every year, I often spend my flight holidays there, and it never bothered me. It was also something, I was on the move for nine hours straight, even without drinking anything and stories like that. I never had problems with it, no headaches or any signs of anything. But like I said, you're right and I'm of the opinion, I mean, then there's the age factor, which is like, when you're younger, your body doesn't quite say, yeah, I can still handle everything.

How old are you now?

I'm 51 now. And at that age, your body might not forgive you completely. And those are all the factors, as you said, that led to it negatively—a little bit from each one—which then ends up resulting in a very, very big negative. When all the factors interact and that's what led to it.

That's one part of the explanation where you'd also say, okay, one of the important lessons from this will probably be to drink a lot, always drink while flying. What other lessons or insights do you have, where you'd say what else would you do differently if you ever did something like this again?

So if I were to do something like this again, I would definitely get myself a Spotty, like a satellite tracker, so that people can always identify it.

Spotty, so a satellite tracker, so that people can always locate it.

That's right, I'd definitely take that with me. There are also those flares for the maritime area, for water sports—those light ball flares and things like that. I'd take something like that too, as an extra, which goes over 80 meters high in the water and produces a light ball with a sound for the mountains. I'd take something like that accordingly, because those are all costs that are relatively low for a relatively large benefit, as it turns out. Whether it happens again is another story, which is what you don't hope for.

We do it because you say and hope that it won't happen, but that you'll be prepared if it does. Also, as I said, next time if I were to go with an organizer, I'd also pay attention to what his, how should I put it, his monitoring is like, in the end, and how things are handled afterwards. I hadn't really paid attention to that before, as I said at the beginning. I said it was only important to me that I got the information about the flight area, but now I'd also pay more attention to how it works when everyone is back and stuff like that. Just ask beforehand how that's regulated, and not like here, because it turned out that even on the first day, when I supposedly wasn't there anymore, they had already, in principle, somewhere already,

alarm bells should have gone off, which didn't happen, and those are things I'd pay attention to now, as well as the phone contact—I mean, I wouldn't just say to my family, "I'm out with a group, everything's fine," but actually say that if I haven't checked in by a certain time in the evening, then something is wrong.

That you really put in a few more safety nets. Yeah, exactly.

That you put those in place and say, if I don't check in, then you have to assume that I can't be reached somehow and I haven't sent a message, so that something has happened that isn't quite normal, let's say.

But you're also saying that from the organizer's perspective, there's really something like a duty to report back or something for the organizer. For example, I know this from our club; when I organize a club trip and we're in the mountains, there are rules that say, okay, your roommate—if you have a double room or something—you always have to find someone and say, you're my buddy for checking in, something like that. So, that means every evening at dinner, if someone hasn't shown up, the buddy knows. And if you say, I'm stranded outside, I'll be later, then you have to let them know, but if there's no word, there's a rule in the club: okay, anyone who hasn't checked in by 7 p.m. and hasn't reported anything, then the rescue team is sent out, and it's at the expense of the person who didn't check in.

That's just that person's bad luck, but that's simply the safety measure that's put in place as a layer. Yes, that is

...it didn't go so well on that day, unfortunately. That's, as you already said, exactly what I would explicitly follow up on next time—how was that handled? Did the organizer just forget to mention it, or whatever? I mean, I can't say what led to it not going smoothly like that; I can't tell you. I don't want to make accusations or stories, because on the second day, I'm only making the point I just made—that nothing happened on the first day, but only on the second. Because if on the first day they had tried to call me, maybe when I was more mentally alert, and they had asked, "Yeah, Olaf, what's wrong with you? You haven't checked in, everyone's looking for you," maybe I would have reacted differently than by placing that emergency call. Yes, on that first day, but then something would have come from the other side again and they would have tried to reach me, but in the end, nothing came then either, but only the following day when I wrote that SMS.

That's why I can only half-blame them, half not, because on the second day they just assumed, "Okay, he's out," based on that ominous SMS I probably wrote. But I could potentially blame them for the first day, for not taking any action right away then.

And what about the hotel or the landlord? Didn't they notice that you never actually went into your room? No, I had...

I didn't have a room at that point yet. I'd said, okay, I'd basically converted my vehicle for camping, and I said I'd either stay there or, once I landed, look for a guesthouse or something like that. I actually wanted to decide that once I was there. Oh, I see.

That means you were driven there, spent the night in your car, the car was probably at the station, and you said, "After that nice flight, I'll look for a nice place to stay, like a campsite or something." But from that perspective, no one else on site noticed anything, like, "Good old Olaf, we have one here, he booked a room and now he's not showing up. I'll go ask about him." So, there was actually nothing that would have necessarily triggered the rescue chain on its own.

Well, I'd say not at that point. I mean, the car was parked down there. It really, as I said, actually sat at that workstation for 14 days. Should it have stood out to anyone that it was parked there permanently? Because even on the first day, I'd packed all the chargers into my car, because when we met at the mountain railway, they still had all the chargers for the radios that were still being distributed in some places. So I had my own, and I packed it into my car. But unfortunately, no one ever thought, "Yeah, now we need those chargers again tonight to charge the radios. Where is he?" and stories like that? He doesn't get in touch at all. That might have stood out, and actually should have stood out, as early as the first evening.

Yeah, crazy. But sometimes there are just crazy stories. So how's it going to be,

So, do you have any idea how your aviation career is going to continue? Will there even be another aviation career?

Yeah, well, my son is also a pilot; he started getting his pilot's license relatively early.

and I thought about it for a long time, whether I'd keep going or not, like I already said. And yeah, I've decided I'll probably start again for now and see how well I can handle it, whether it's—it sounds a bit silly—whether the whole thing is still worth it for me or not.

And as I said, I decided—let's put it in quotes—relatively early that I'll probably give it another try, that I'll go flying again, because I did have so much, so much fun and yeah, it was really my thing. I've actually always flown whenever I could afford to and do it from a training perspective, and I said, okay, I'll do it again, I just have to see about getting the equipment again and also just saying—which is very important to me, I keep saying this—I have to go up there again, I have to be able to close that mentally, I have to get my equipment out of there, and I think I will fly again, and if I fly in a group, as I also said, then really pay attention to how that's organized and also the contact if I go alone, where my wife always said, I'm not letting you go anywhere alone anymore, so if I do, I'm always coming along.

so that this aspect is out of the way—at least that's what she said, whether it'll be the same later, we'll see. In any case, from her side, she won't let me go anywhere where things aren't 100% regulated in the group the way she—or rather, the way we—want them to be. I know other organizers who do it a bit differently; if someone is missing, like you said, they really look into what happened where. So, in that form, if I need it, it won't happen again. But at the moment, I'm about 95 percent on track to fly again. I just, as I said, set a point in time where I said I won't fly at all until then, just to give my body enough time to recover and regenerate until everything has healed properly.

I told them I wouldn't fly until then, and that point is actually coming up soon. Then I'll see—whenever the opportunity arises again for us to fly here, or are allowed to, I'll probably start up again.

You could also say, I'm not going into the high mountains anymore, I'm only flying in the North German lowlands. If I get blown off course there and end up coming down somewhere, at least I don't have to hike down a steep mountain and get lost out there.

Yeah, but it's not the fear of that. I mean, if you look at the safety aspect, I find flying here in the lowlands just as dangerous, or just as harmless, as in the mountains. Because I mean, if it were to happen to me here in the lowlands in that way and I ended up going down somewhere, I'd say we have so, so many overhead power lines,

High-voltage lines, highways, and things like that. So, I'd say the danger is just as great as in the high mountains if something like that were to happen again. But as I said, I've also looked into that. I always drink a lot beforehand. I also do a constant O2 measurement during the flight to see what the blood oxygen level is. There are plenty of such things these days. Simple devices you can use to see that, to simply, yeah, how should I put it, rule out as much as possible those things that might indicate, ah, here, watch out, you've reached a level where it could become dangerous. So I can really only do a process of elimination to see what could be the cause of it happening again. I'll never be able to rule those out, that's quite clear.

I mean, you could also say that if I cross the street, I might get hit by a truck. So obviously, you have to weigh it up, but from that perspective, I think I'll definitely get back into the air.

Well, that was a life-threatening, truly traumatic experience in its own way. Is there still something you would say was lost in the mountains this week? Did you learn anything positive from it for yourself, something you can take away and say, "I don't actually want to measure this part, no matter how bad it was"? Did you realize something, discover something, develop feelings, or anything else where you say, "I've understood something new, differently"?

Well, I'd say I understood things differently. I mean, maybe you should set your priorities a bit differently. At least for me. My takeaway was simply about what's important and what isn't. I started shifting my mindset quite early on regarding what matters and what doesn't, but I'd say after the accident, it's, well, how should I put it, moved even more to the forefront. I mean the financial stuff, work, free time, this whole balance of what's important and what's not—where do you put your energy, into which stories, where you say, oh you know what, is it worth putting so much heart and soul into?

Not just regarding flying, but also regarding my career, the financial side of things, those kinds of stories. Things have changed a bit, well, a bit more in that direction.

Would you then also see that, in retrospect, in a way as...

well, hard to say maybe, but can you still take something positive from it somewhere?

Yes, that is something positive for me. So, I'd say, in terms of work, something positive is when I tell people in a company I work for, "You know what, in the end, just do it the way you want to." It sounds very casual now, but I don't care what you do there; in the end, it's actually not important. It's like, I say, that's the priority—it's nice, and if you do it that way, it's okay, maybe not for me, but if you're of the opinion that you have to do it that way, then do it. But for me personally, in terms of importance, that has moved so far to the back. I've said, people, you have to consider that I'm really speaking from my own thinking—I'm from this story, I didn't get paraplegia, I survived the whole ordeal, and those kinds of stories are important to me, and I want to live for a few more years.

and a lot of other things just fall into the background, where you say, that's important to me, or I'll just give a really stupid, casual example. Yeah, like driving a great car, that would be important to me, or making a career, or reaching the top of your profession, that's important to me, still achieving that, still getting there professionally, those are all stories where I say, is that really important? Is that what's important to you? Is it where I want to go, or life itself? What do you actually still expect from it? What is still worth striving for, and really just going back to the basics. I say, go out, look at nature, is this, how should I put it, is this consumption so important to you?

...or what do you actually need, or what can you really do without in life, what wasn't important to you at all and isn't important anymore? Those are the things I really pulled out and now I'm saying, it's just become even more extreme, and I say, that's not important to me. I used to think, okay, yeah, I want to achieve that, I want to have that, I have to have that, but now I'm saying, no, that's not important to me anymore. I mean,

Go out, enjoy life. In other words, you only get one of these. I'd say, look at how well you're actually doing in the end, as it is now, because it could be much, much worse. I mean,

Look at other people who, as I said, didn't get a second chance to live, let's say, in a leadership role. Those are all the kinds of stories I pull out of there, and it's not—you could have ended up in much, much worse shape, like paralyzed from the waist down, but then I would have said, okay, then I'd rather stay on the mountain entirely and not come back at all, because that wouldn't be an option for me at the moment. I would have decided that for myself; I mean, if it had been so bad, so bad, that I would have been paralyzed from the head down because of the accident, then

I would have said I'd rather have stayed on the mountain. You wouldn't have been able to descend at all from that moment on, so you probably would have stayed on the mountain for good. Yeah, exactly.

but as I said, I can also pull out another thing, it sounds a bit macabre now, but I'd say the view up there, even those five days, was of course great. I can't describe it any other way, I'd say in terms of the impressions of the mountains up there, it was of course unique, so they were really great, I'd say the panorama, stories like that, even despite the accident, it was a flood zone, where I'd say from an optical standpoint, from what you see, from what's there, it's of course great, really great.

Are you saying that now in hindsight, or did you also have those moments of happiness during the times you were there, or during those days when you spent so much time alone with yourself, where you'd look around and say, "I feel like shit, but it looks freaking awesome."

Yes, exactly, that's exactly how it is. And really, from a landscape perspective, it's truly great, it's unique here, such an amazing spectacle of nature and those stories with the glacier and yeah.

Alright, Olaf, then I wish you that you can spend your next, second birthday or whatever, maybe actually back up on the mountain again in September. Maybe it's even the case that exactly on your birthday—is that the day the hunters found you and basically saved you—that maybe something like that really happens, where you can climb up to your hut, say, I'm celebrating my second birthday here, I'm going to get my gear down now and close this chapter in a truly positive sense, and can say I've really learned something from this for my life. It's great that you're still here. Great that you can tell it so willingly. I think some people will really get goosebumps at some point because it's all the kind of stuff you never want, never imagine, and sometimes can't even imagine at all, because you actually think, you land somewhere and then in a certain way, in such a European civilization, it's then quite easy to be lost in such mountains and be completely on your own there and have to somehow push through.

So it's great that you made it and that people

...so that others can maybe learn something from it and then, just like I did or as we just discussed, just get a bit more insurance. Regarding the instruments, also look at making sure they're properly rested, properly hydrated during the flight, and accordingly, just like I might have done, I brushed it off a bit—I don't need to, I haven't needed to until now, everything always went well—maybe they can learn from that, draw a conclusion from it, and say, "Man, look, I can't always just listen to my body until it's too late, I have to take care of it beforehand." And also, regarding the safety chain, make sure everything really works and runs smoothly, so that maybe others can also say, "Man, claro, I haven't really thought about that, maybe I should pay a bit more attention to that when I do something like this," and that maybe others can also learn something from it. And there's always a way, even downwards, as you can see.

And also, let me say it again, everyone should make sure they're properly insured, because a rescue like that isn't exactly cheap, if I may say so. I found out afterwards what the whole thing cost, what the hospital costs are—you usually hardly ever get a say in that, unless you're privately insured. But otherwise, just that flight alone, that half hour where they didn't even have to provide intensive care for me, that half hour cost over five, ten thousand euros, just the flight. So that adds up quickly, and that's really something you should look into, making sure that if you travel abroad, you're properly insured so that you don't end up with some extra costs later, because that would be an added burden on top of such an accident. And of course, I was lucky to have all that, and I just want people to keep that in mind.

Because I mean, even with these—it sounds stupid, I'm just going to throw this in here again—I'm saying that with the DHV, the coverage is included up to 10,000 euros in an emergency, but if you actually had to start a search operation, not like mine, but really had to search for over a day, I'm telling you people, you won't get by with that amount financially, even if it's mountaineering or a fall. I'd say maybe look into that, because I always think: I'm taking out insurance not because I know something will happen, but in the hope that nothing happens. That's also for others who might say, "Man, of course, I didn't think about that at all, that it could all be much more expensive in the worst-case scenario," because for some people, that might be the final blow if they say, "I had an accident and now I have to pay 20,000 euros out of my own pocket because I wasn't properly insured."

Good tip for people who want to look out for themselves—what can they learn from this? At the same time, of course, you have to say that getting out safely and having your life is something where you can eventually say, screw the 20,000 euros, if you feel lucky enough. You just think, I'll get that somehow, I'll probably manage to make that work again. Olaf, I hope you'll have many happy hours in your life, maybe even beautiful, happy hours in flight again that you can enjoy and where you can say, wow, what a cool landscape, especially looking at it from up here. I wish you that it works out that way. Thanks for your story and yeah, all the best and say hi to your wife; tell her to always call you nicely in the evening, or you call her.

That's what she wants too.

She's sitting slightly across from me and is listening to all of this, of course.

She's smiling to herself silently, probably half-suffering and half-joyful at the same time. That's how it looks. Okay Olaf, thank you and all the best for the future. I should be thanking you.

That was Olaf Salewski in conversation with Lucian Haas. Olaf's story moved me very much and has already prompted some thoughts on my part. You can really use experiences like these to question your own actions. Am I drinking enough and consistently while flying? Should I, as a lowland Tyrolean after a long journey, perhaps take high-mountain flying a bit more gently and not cruise for hours at unusually high altitudes on the very first day? What about live tracking? Wouldn't it make sense to always carry a small power bank and charging cable in the harness, to at least ensure a phone with a low battery has enough power for an emergency call? Who do I inform, how, and when I go flying? What mandatory feedback agreements should I make, and with whom?

Do I have a first-aid kit in my harness? Is there a lightweight metal emergency blanket in it? You can certainly go through these kinds of questions, and many more, before your next flight.

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