Between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, a 69-year-old man goes hiking in the low mountain range. It is relatively mild for the season, but at higher elevations, the temperatures are around 5 °C / 41 °F and there is a partially gusty wind. Before Christmas, it had snowed heavily once; the now typical warm wind before the holidays, however, has significantly melted the snow cover, so that most paths below 1500 m / 4,921 feet above sea level are easily passable. For an unknown reason, however, the hiker falls about 150 m / 492 feet over an old snowfield into steep terrain interspersed with rocks and grass. He is doubly fortunate in his misfortune: on the one hand, he comes to a stop just before a rock outcrop, behind which it would have gone almost vertically down another 300 m / 984 feet; sliding over this edge would have meant certain death. On the other hand, his fall is observed by other hikers from some distance away, who immediately call for emergency assistance.