Seriously injured mountain rescuer waits to make journey home to Spain

A SPANISH mountaineer who was badly hurt while part of a rescue team in Argentinean Patagonia will have to wait several weeks before he can come home.

Jesús Gutiérrez Rey will be transferred to Spain in the next few weeks in a commercial airplane, accompanied by a medical team.

Sources from the mountaineer’s family and from the Castilla-La Mancha Mountain Federation have said agreements with his insurance company will make the transfer possible, but his medical condition must improve first.

The mountaineer, known as ‘Susi’, fell 30 metres and was badly hurt while participating in an international rescue on Fitz Roy mountain, where his team was looking for three missing mountaineers, who were finally given up for dead after an aerial search could find no trace of them.

Gutíerrez has  has four broken ribs, fluid in the lungs, clots in the legs and multiple fractures to his elbow, legs and collar bone.

He was rescued by Cuenca mountaineer Pedro Ciguentes, who saved him from freezing to death after he had fallen into a lake with temperatures of 15 degrees below zero.