Mountain rescue team delivers baby on Alps

A team of 15 mountain rescuers accompanied by a doctor and a gynaecologist climbed 2,350 metres on foot up the Austrian Alps to help deliver a baby.

The mother of the baby had been staying at a mountain hut in the eastern Tyrol region when she went into premature labour at 7am on Tuesday, reportedly 24 weeks into her pregnancy. Because of strong rain and dense fog, which had dramatically reduced visibility in the region, Tyrol mountain rescue authorities were unable to send a helicopter to fly the 30-year-old to a hospital, eventually deciding to send a rescue team on foot instead.

The rescuers managed to carry her further down the mountain, where, shortly before 6pm and at an altitude of 2,250 metres, she gave birth to a boy.

According to the public broadcaster ORF, improving weather conditions shortly afterwards enabled a helicopter crew to take the mother and baby to a clinic in nearby Lienz.

Neonatol clinic

From Lienz the baby was flown to a specialist neonatology clinic in Villach.

A spokesperson for the clinic said: “The baby is in a stable condition, but we will have to wait for 72 hours before we can say more.”

In all, 25 mountain rescuers, four doctors and two helicopters were involved in the rescue. "We are all physically exhausted," Gerhard Figl, the rescue team leader, told Kronen Zeitung newspaper.

“We have achieved something incredible and luckily there was a happy ending. We have saved two people’s lives.”

– (Guardian service)