ORDEAL FOR CLIMBER

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27098, 22 July 1953, Page 9

ORDEAL FOR CLIMBER

Three Nights In Crevice (Rec. 12.40 a.m.) PARIS, July 21. Rescue teams were setting out at dawn today to climb Mont Blanc to aid a mountaineer, Georges Barbacki, who has been jammed between two rocks on Aiguille du Fou (Madman’s Peak) for three terrible nights. Reports had spread that he was already saved, but police said today that he was still trapped in the crevice into which he fell. He was injured but he shouted to guides yesterday that he could hold out till this afternoon. Rescuers recovered the body of Barbacki’s companion, Claude Chullivat, who fell 100 feet and was killed. Alpine weather was good when gendarmes and mountain guides set out from Chamonix and neighbouring villages on the morning of July 21. They said that although-the difficulties were great, they hoped to bring Barbacki down safely. The guides who first found him were descending after finding the bodies of four lost Spanish alpinists near the summit of Mont Blanc. _ A mountain guide who took part in the rescue attempts yesterday said Barbacki was hanging from a rope down a sheer rock face. He appeared only slightly injured. He and a friend had been surprised by a storm as they were climbing. Chullivat was found with a fractured skull. The guide said the rescuers would try to reach the spot where Barbacki fixed his rope and attempt to haul him up. Reports from Sesto, Northern Italy, said that alpine guides yesterday recovered the bodies of three Italian climbers who fell to their death from a Dolomite mountain face on Sunday. They tried to finish the ascent during a storm and lightning struck a metal pick, severing their rope. They dropped nearly 1000 feet on to the rocks below.