Seven “longest hours” and super Suzy: how the tourists, who fell from the snow cornice in the Carpathians, were rescued

Ivona Kostyna, who yesterday fell from a snow cornice during a trip to the Carpathians (Pip Ivan) and who was rescued by Oleksandr Chub (by the way, the ATO participant), told how everything happened. Post from her facebook:

"We were walking no less than three meters away from the edge, but the cornice turned out to be bigger. The land collapsed underneath my feet and in a second I was falling in a pile of snow. One impact, stop, a thought about parents, and then falling again.   And then everything stopped – all this mass of snow and dirt carrying and shaking me. I could barely breathe, mouth was full of snow, and I began to get it out. I was lucky – I was above this mass and instinctively remembered the lessons of Maxim Muzyka, freed my face and then all the rest.

I immediately shouted that I was alive and heard Oleksandr Chub. I thought that I was so close to the point of falling, but it turned out that he had jumped after me. He also fell from a considerable hight. We reached each other and then I lost it. It was very scary. We tried to shout at Zhenya, but heard no response – I only heard Suzy barking.

We were lucky: we were not injured and could move. We had to go quickly, because it was getting dark.                 

Those were the longest 7 hours in my life.  Finally, we came across an unmarked shack, where, unfortunately, we had to break the locks. We warmed up a little, borrowed some food and water, found sleeping bags and took off our shoes. I fell asleep and barely managed to stand up at three to continue going. We were very worried about Zhenya and Suzy.

Our camp was packed with rescuers. They were very happy to see us.  It turned out that there was a whole rescue operation and we called our parents.

Suzy was brought from the mountain 10 minutes after us. She had run away from Zhenya and was sitting at the point of fall until 5 am. Super Suzy. Really the best.

Zhenya was waiting for more than 2 hours on the mountain, reported about us, and then came down without incidents. Thank you so much.

This post is not about "heroism" hyped by the media. There was no heroism. There was inadequate preparation and irresponsibility. It is about mistakes. Mistakes that could have ended up differently. And about the experience.Everyone gets it in his or her own way. I got it by getting buried in snow.

We’ll be at home soon."