On 17/7, tour guide Marco Span discovered the backpack and other items while leading a group of tourists across the Sulztalferner glacier, at an altitude of nearly 2,950 m in the Tyrol region, Austria. Inside the backpack were an ice axe, a camera, and a rescue whistle, all dating from the 1950s-1960s. After finding no body nearby, Span brought the backpack to the Neustift police station.
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The backpack discovered by guide Span. Photo: Span |
Officer Gregor Gatt found no identification documents inside the backpack but discovered several damp, handwritten notes, including withdrawal slips from a bank in Bavaria state, Germany. After drying each piece of paper, he identified a name: Alfred Rothfischer. Searching this name on Google, Gatt located the family's landline number in the town of Wörth an der Donau.
Waltraud Rothfischer, Alfred's wife, was surprised to receive a call from Austrian police asking if her husband had lost a backpack in the mountains. Sitting next to his wife, Alfred Rothfischer recalled the incident on 3/8/1963.
Alfred, then 23 years old, was climbing in the Stubaier Alpen mountains with two friends. While crossing the Sulztalferner glacier, he was leading the way when he slipped and fell into a crevasse, hanging approximately 8 m deep. His friends held the safety rope tightly, allowing him to use a Prusik knot to climb out himself. However, the backpack was too heavy, so he had to abandon it in the crevasse to escape.
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The camera from the backpack after 63 years. Photo: AOL |
After successfully rescuing himself with minor injuries, he descended the mountain and reported the loss of all his documents to the police before returning to Germany. For over six decades, his family occasionally joked that the backpack would one day emerge from the ice.
Due to his health at 86 years old not allowing long-distance travel, on 25/8, his son, Andreas Rothfischer, represented the family in Neustift to retrieve the memento.
"If my father hadn't abandoned the backpack, my family wouldn't be here today", he said.
Hoai Anh (According to People, Krone)
