Man Dies Trying to Help Friend Trapped on 25,000-Foot Peak with Broken Leg

An Italian climber died on a Kyrgyzstan mountain after he attempted to help a fellow climber who broke her leg and was trapped near the summit.

According to The Times and the Daily Mail, 49-year-old Luca Sinigaglia of Milan died on Aug. 15 from prolonged exposure to low oxygen levels and hypothermia at Pobeda Peak (meaning Victory Peak, or Jengish Chokusu in Kyrgyz), located at around 24,406 feet in the Tian Shan mountain range on the country’s border with China.

Luca had summited the peak several times in an attempt to bring supplies, including a tent, food, water and a sleeping bag, to his friend, Russian climber Natalia Nagovitsyna, 47, after she fell and broke her leg on Aug. 12.

The outlets reported that Luca died after he did not make it to the peak, around 2,000 feet from where Nagovitsyna was stuck.

Luca’s body was recovered from an ice cave, where he had collapsed from exhaustion, according to The Times. Doctors said he probably died from cerebral edema, or an excess of fluid in the brain, the outlet reported.

“He carried out an act of great courage. He would never have left anyone behind, and especially not Natalia, with whom he had survived an experience that made them very close,” said Luca’s sister, Patrizia Sinigaglia, per The Times. “It was an action to be proud of that unfortunately did not allow him to return to us. But that was Luca.”

The Italian climber was also joined by German mountaineer Gunther Siegmund in the rescue operation. Siegmund later climbed to safety, according to The Times.

Rescue efforts by several agencies, including the Russian Mountaineering Federation and Kyrgyzstan’s Ministry of Emergency Situations, have been underway in an attempt to save Nagovitsyna for nearly 13 days, according to The Times and CNN.

CNN reported that a surveillance drone last spotted Nagovitsyna on a ridge near the top of the mountain on Tuesday, Aug. 19, and she was believed to be alive at the time. Officials have not yet shared whether they believe her to still be alive.

According to the Daily Mail, a final attempt to climb to Nagovitsyna was aborted about 3,600 feet from where she is trapped on Saturday, Aug. 23, as weather conditions have worsened. A helicopter from the Kyrgyzstan Defense Ministry crashed in a previous attempt to rescue Nagovitsyna, the outlet reported, and experts are now uncertain that they will be able to find the Russian climber in the -9 degree weather and high winds that may have shredded her tent.

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Alexander Pyatnitsyn, vice president of the Russian Mountaineering Federation, told The Times that it “will be almost impossible to save her,” although three Italian rescuers are still planning to charter a private helicopter in an attempt to reach Nagovitsyna.

“There’s a three-kilometer-long ridge, and it takes at least 30 people in such a situation to rescue a person from there,” Pyatnitsyn said.

The Times reported that Luca and Nagovitsyna first met in 2021 while climbing Khan Tengri in the same mountain range. Luca, who worked as a cybersecurity expert, helped Nagovitsyna and her husband, Sergei, descend off the mountain. Sergei later experienced a stroke and died from the incident.

“After that, they spoke often, agreeing every so often to meet up on some mountain around the world,” Luca’s sister said of the two, before remembering her brother as someone who wouldn’t leave a friend behind.

“He has performed an act of great courage,” she added to the Italian outlet Ansa. “We can hold on to this knowledge. He would never have left anyone behind.”