A rock climber who fell hundreds of feet descending a steep gully in Washington’s North Cascades mountains survived the fall that killed his three companions, hiked to his car in the dark and then drove to a pay phone to call for help, authorities said Tuesday.

The surviving climber, Anton Tselykh, 38, extricated himself from a tangle of ropes, helmets and other equipment after the fall Saturday evening. Despite suffering internal bleeding and head trauma, Tselykh eventually, over at least a dozen hours, made the trek to the pay phone, Okanogan County Undersheriff Dave Yarnell said.

The climbers who were killed were Vishnu Irigireddy, 48, Tim Nguyen, 63, Oleksander Martynenko, 36, Okanogan County Coroner Dave Rodriguez said.

  • Llewellyn@lemm.ee
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    12 hours ago

    I have zero compassion for people, who voluntarily put themselves at mortal risk as a hobby.

    • absGeekNZ@lemmy.nz
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      47 minutes ago

      You mean like walking down the street or driving to the supermarket for gaming snacks?

    • BradleyUffner@lemmy.world
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      4 hours ago

      You stepped outside today; a de-orbitted space station toilet seat could have hit you in the head and killed you!

      Literally everything has some level of “mortal risk”.

    • bss03@infosec.pub
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      3 hours ago

      What is “mortal risk”? You can die due to driving to the Yarn Barn. Do you have zero compassion for knitters and crochet-ists?

      Your feeling resonates with me, but I’m not sure it’s a defensible moral stance.