Rescuers find injured Italian hiker after night in ravine
Wednesday 30th September 2026 on 16:15 in
Austria
A 42-year-old Italian hiker spent the night seriously injured in the Gadaunerer Gorge, a ravine in the Gastein Valley, before rescuers found him around midday on Wednesday, ORF reported.
The man had set out hiking at about 3 p.m. on Tuesday and was reported missing by his accommodation in Bad Hofgastein on Wednesday morning after he failed to return. He had asked reception about hiking routes with waterfalls, but there was no information about where he planned to go, said Roman Brandstetter, operations leader for the Bad Hofgastein mountain rescue team.
A search team heard the man calling for help at about 12.30 p.m. He was about two metres above a waterfall. Rescuers used ropes to help the Martin 1 emergency helicopter team extract him, and he was flown to Schwarzach Hospital in Pongau.
The search involved 36 mountain rescuers from Bad Hofgastein and Bad Gastein, five rescue dog handlers, a missing-person dog team, police, alpine police, a police helicopter, a drone team and the Bad Hofgastein volunteer fire brigade.