Avalanche buried dad and skier Emil
Slovenske novice - Aleksander Brudar: The avalanche was fatal for experienced ski tourer Emil Jerman.
KAMNIŠKA BISTRICA – Slovenian mountains, where huge amounts of snow have already fallen this winter, have once again shown they can be very merciless to their enthusiasts. They are most dangerous precisely these days when there is a lot of wind-blown snow, ideal for avalanches. These in most cases are real mountain killers, as surviving under the mass that pours onto a random hiker or ski tourer is almost impossible.
Unfortunately, 34-year-old Emil Jerman from Kamnica in the municipality of Dol pri Ljubljani, otherwise from Ljubljana, experienced this on Wednesday when he set off in the morning for ski touring in the Kamnik-Savinja Alps. Yesterday morning they found him dead under the 1585m high Kamniški Dedec. The search for Jerman began already on Wednesday evening when his wife notified mountain rescuers that Jerman, who went towards Kamniška Bistrica and planned to ascend to Kamniški Dedec from there, had not returned home. Rescue operation started immediately, police found the missing man's vehicle near the home in Kamniška Bistrica.
As Matej Bizjak, mountain rescuer from GRS Kamnik and leader of the group searching for the 34-year-old Ljubljana resident in the snowy mountain, told us, they searched until Thursday 2 a.m. Due to avalanche danger they had to interrupt and continued at 6 a.m. 15 people participated in the rescue on Wednesday and yesterday, Bizjak was in the group of five rescuers who went further. After extensive terrain check of Kamniški Dedec they found his body around 10:30 a.m. a bit further from Klin, which is an hour's walk from the valley, and even longer in case of transporting the victim.
Current conditions in mountains unsuitable for visiting
Rescuers dug out the missing from under the snow and transported him by helicopter to Kamnik. To the question what brought them so quickly to the unfortunate 34-year-old, Bizjak said his relatives helped a lot, as Jerman always precisely said which route he would take to the mountain, and what he says he sticks to. The info on where he parked his car was also very helpful.
Bizjak warns that current conditions in mountains are unsuitable for visits, as huge amounts of snow have fallen, and wind-blown. Even though Jerman went to Kamniški Dedec on touring skis, Bizjak adds that given current conditions it doesn't play a big role.
According to our data, Jerman, married and father of two, was a very experienced ski tourer who did quite a few ski tours a few days before the tragic event. He always, also this time, went ski touring with full equipment, had avalanche transceiver too. He knew the terrain where avalanche finally took him very well, but obviously snow conditions surprised him. On the other hand, Emil Jerman was also a great expert in equipping road tunnels, since 2002 he dealt with automatic traffic detection and participated in installing the system in all new tunnels in Slovenia. Among others he trained in Belgium, employed supposedly at Technix, where he managed projects for video surveillance and automatic traffic detection on motorways.