A HERO climber has died after trying to help his friend trapped on a 25,000ft peak with a broken leg.
Luca Sinigaglia, 49, twice climbed back to the summit to bring essential supplies to Natalia Nagovitsyna as emergency services race against time to rescue her.
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The Italian climber died on August 15 from low oxygen and hypothermia in the Tian Shan mountain range on the border with China.
He was taking essential supplies (including a tent, sleeping bag, water, food and a small gas cooker) to his friend Natalia who had fallen and broken her leg while scaling the mountain on August 12.
Luca, a cybersecurity expert from Milan, was on his second attempt to reach Natalia and just a few hundred metres from where she was taking cover when he tragically died.
He had been climbing with German mountaineer, Gunthe Siegmund, who returned to safety.
Luca’s body was later recovered and doctors suggested he died of cerebral edema – the swelling of the brain due to excess fluid accumulation.
Hailing his efforts as heroic, Natalia’s sister, Patrizia Sinigaglia, said: “He carried out an act of great courage.
“He would never have left anyone behind, and especially not Natalia, with whom he had survived an experience that made them very close.”
His death comes as efforts to rescue Natalia have been obstructed by ongoing bad weather with temperatures reaching as low as minus 23C.
Four rescuers were injured during a search operation when a military helicopter was forced to crash-land.
On August 19, a drone flew over where Natalia is taking shelter and confirmed she was still alive but there was no sign of life on Thursday.
The Russian Mountaineering Federation warned that a rescue would be a “miracle” as the conditions were making it “almost impossible to save her”.
Alexander Pyatnitsyn, the federation’s vice president, said: “It will be almost impossible to save her.
“There’s a three-kilometre-long ridge, and it takes at least 30 people in such a situation to rescue a person from there.”
