Natalia Nagovitsina has been stuck up Victory Peak in Kyrgyzstan for a week-and-a-half after she suffered a significant injury while undertaking the 24,406ft climb
Rescuers have abandoned their efforts to save a climber stuck 22,000ft up a mountain with a broken leg.
Russian mountaineer Natalia Nagovitsina, 47, has been marooned for ten days in atrocious weather on Victory Peak in Kyrgyzstan with little food or water. The well-known climber was seen moving on drone footage as recently as three days ago, after she had been struck for a week.
But since then, temperatures have sunk to minus 23C and experts said it would be a miracle if she was rescued. A sleeping bag had been delivered to her by Italian climber Luca Sinigaglia, 49, who also brought a tent, food, water and a gas cooker.
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However, repeated efforts to bring her down failed, both by climbing and using a helicopter. Tragedy then hit when Mr Sinigaglia died on the mountain from prolonged exposure to low oxygen and hypothermia. Today, a final effort to climb to her was abandoned just 3,600ft below where she is stuck.
With the weather set to worsen, as the team were ordered to return to base camp. Earlier, a defence ministry Mi-8 helicopter crashed as it sought to rescue her. Another helicopter, a Mi-17VM, was sent, but zero visibility again forced rescuers back.
Dmitry Grekov, rescue leader and head of base camp, said today that experienced mountaineer Vitaly Akimov had led a team seeking to climb to Nagovitsina but he started suffering back pain from the helicopter crash and the mission was abandoned.
Mr Sinigaglia had also been on the helicopter and was hailed a hero on social media. “I turned the whole group around, there were four of them,” Grekov said. Asked if she was still alive, he admitted he did not know but said: “I think not, because she has been there since 12 August – count how much time has passed. It is unrealistic. It is unrealistic to survive at such an altitude.”
The Kyrgyzstan Ministry of Emergency Situations confirmed the rescue mission had been called off. Nagovitsina is famous because four years ago she refused orders to leave her husband – who had suffered a stroke at 22,638ft.
She survived by a miracle after comforting him on the mountain, but was unable to save him. In 2021, her radio conversion with base camp went viral as she refused to leave husband Sergei Nogovitsin at a similar altitude – 22,638ft – who suffered a debilitating stroke during an ascent of Khan Tengri close to the border of Khan Tengri, close to the borders of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and China.
“He can’t sit up, falls on his side, his speech is confused,” she told rescuers. “Natasha, you need to go down yourself. You won’t be able to help him in any way. Do you understand me? Over.” She replied: “I understand everything, but I will not leave him alone. Natasha, answer…..
“Listening…You need to go down, Natasha, the weather is getting worse, it’s almost night. I won’t leave my husband, he’s completely helpless, I’m giving him something to drink.” So, your decision is to spend the night next to him?”
Rescuers eventually reached the pair and two men tried to move Sergey while she went down. But they could not go far, and secured him with ropes, and left all their warm clothing and food, before cutting a route further down the mountain, to get more help.
An account said: “Most likely in delirium….he broke out of ropes and crashed to his death. His body has never been found.” His body was never found.
“A year later Natalia once again went to Khan Tengri to install a plaque in memory of her husband. But no one in the new group had any idea what this courageous woman had lived through on that summit a year earlier – a woman who showed the whole world what love and self-sacrifice mean.”