A survivor of a snowstorm in Chile, which left a British woman and four other tourists dead, has described the desperate attempts to save his fellow hikers.
Christian Aldridge told UK Tonight with Sarah-Jane Mee of his “devastation” at losing friend Victoria Bond, 40, in the incident.
Telling of the desperate scenes, he described how a volunteer rescue party used a homemade stretcher to recover one of the missing hikers.
Five bodies were recovered on Tuesday after a powerful snowstorm hit the Patagonia region inside Torres del Paine National Park.
Mr Aldridge, 41, from Newquay in Cornwall, was with Ms Bond and three other British friends hoping to complete the O Circuit hiking trail.
They were part of a larger group of around 30 as they trekked through the famous John Gardner pass when they fell into danger.
The area was struck by winds in excess of 120mph, and the group attempted to make their way back to the Los Perros camp, which they had left that morning.
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During the storm, equivalent to a Category 3 hurricane, Mr Aldridge became separated from Ms Bond, but he later managed to find some of the rest of the group.
At base camp, they realised that some members were missing and decided to organise their own search party.
Mr Aldridge, a TV director and producer, said the volunteer rescue party that took part in the search, which included two of their group, Tom and Matt, found three bodies.
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Mr Aldridge told Sky News: “We’re relieved to be alive, of course, but devastated because we’ve lost one of our best friends and one of the most amazing people I’ve met.
“And we’re all carrying around with us a huge amount of grief, shock and guilt. We keep replaying everything that happened that day and asking, what could we have done differently? And it’s overwhelming and it still doesn’t feel real.”
Mr Aldridge added: “They recovered one of [the hikers] and she was still alive at the time and brought her down on a homemade stretcher that the rest of us in the camp made from sleeping mats, polystyrene and walking poles.
“There were fortunately medics in these volunteer groups, but unfortunately she went into hypothermic cardiac arrest. She was shot twice and they worked on her for an hour, but she didn’t make it through.”
The other members of the group of British friends who had hoped to complete the O Circuit were Hayley Newnham, 41, a PR agency owner, sports coach developer Matt Smith, 39, and Tom Player, 39, a composer from London, according to reports.
Mr Aldridge said of the other two they found, one was “already deceased on the mountain” and the other one was “non-responsive”, and it was “unsafe to bring her down”.
He said the following day, “when the rangers arrived, they recovered the remaining bodies and found the two further, one of which was Victoria”.
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Speaking of the tragedy, the Chilean National Forest Corporation said in a statement: “We have launched an internal investigation to determine any potential liability related to this accident.
“The investigation will include a review of all relevant information to clarify each stage of the incident: how the protocols were activated, the nature of communications, and how the search, rescue, and evacuation operations unfolded.”
