A 21-year-old mountaineer can’t bring his body home after he fell 90 to 150 meters in front of his girlfriend in a rocky ravine, leaving him stranded in an “impossible” area to walk.
“Not being able to bring Joel home is devastating. After the search ended, some of Joel’s family and friends went to the mountain to find him. Joel was a man who loved the outdoors,” reads a crowdfunding campaign set up Friday to endow a scholarship in his memory.
Last Monday, 21-year-old Joel Dronby was climbing the North Sister in Oregon’s Cascade Range when he fell about 90 meters for the first time, past his girlfriend Fiona Curley, who was accompanying him, The Independent reported.
The critically injured young man was able to speak while his girlfriend was busy calling the emergency room.
But now about two hours later, the young woman would have lost track of her boyfriend after suffering a second fall.
In the following days, drone and helicopter searches were conducted in an area that was “impossible” to navigate on foot, according to the Lane County Sheriff’s Office, in an effort to find the teenager. He was finally found dead on Thursday.
According to a report first shared by The Independent, although expert climbers were consulted “to determine whether a rescue operation could be safely carried out”, the victim’s family ultimately revealed that “they were unable to recover the body”.
