03:21

Ruth Deutschmann

Benjamin Epp

2008-08-22

Sylvia Manning-Baumgartner

Nicole D´Incecco

1999

The morning after we tried to get to my son with two army helicopters. They had arrived during the night or in the early morning. We hadn't been able to contact him because the power was out up there. The small power plant is run by water. The stream flows by above the hut and is rerouted onto the turbine. From both sides of the valley above the hut, two enormous avalanches had come down and covered the whole plateau. So the stream was blocked. That means no more water was directed to the turbine so he didn't have any electricity and we couldn't reach him. The second day after the disaster the weather finally permitted us to fly up to him and... That was hardest of my life. To go to him... But he had a presentiment. Using a battery powered ultra-short wave receiver he had been able to listen to the police radio. He didn't know any names but he knew that something terrible had happened in Galtür.When we were finally able to reach him by helicopter I took our deacon, the local lay priest with me, for support. He's about the same age as Gottlieb. Afterwards Gottlieb told us he knew that something very horrible had happened the moment he saw us getting out of the helicopter.