'Do you speak English? We've had an accident. We may need help.' The shouts of our guide floated out of the mist along with the screams of the injured. During breaks in the cloud, small, coloured dots scurried about on the snow below us. A simple slip had turned an introductory alpine course, based in Switzerland's Saas Grund, into a major rescue ordeal.
We had set off at 4am from the Almageller hut. It's a maxim of alpine travel to move before the heat of the day makes the snow and ice unstable, melting the snow bridges across glaciers and increasing the chances of ice falls. The weather forecast was poor but the Weissmies is considered an easy 4,000-metre (13,000ft) mountain and its south-east ridge, which was our line of ascent, offered fine scrambling virtually all the way to the top. We were two ropes of three. Other groups were following in our tracks.
There's something rather pleasing about the crunch of crampons on snow and walking by the light of headtorches until the arrival of dawn. By 9am, the weather had worsened and wind and snow lashed our faces as we crossed the exposed ridge to the summit.
Our original plan had been to complete the traverse dropping down to the Hohsaas hut on the other side but the guides were not prepared to navigate across crevasses in poor visibility. The alternative was to return the way we had come until we could drop off the ridge down a steep snow slope that was often used as an escape route off the mountain. All went well for an hour; first our rope, then theirs, leading the descent. But about 100 metres above the snow slope, Duncan slipped and pulled Jerry over with him.
The guide held the fall but several rocks were dislodged and they bounced down on the two climbers, smashing Duncan's arm and Jerry's leg. Silence, shouts, silence again. Jonathan, our British guide, untied himself from our rope, told us to stay where we were and climbed down to administer some basic first aid.
The victims were brought off the rocks and on to the snow slope. One of the priorities was to keep them warm. Enter a real life-saving device, the group shelter, a wind and rain-resistant piece of material that looks like a parachute and collapses into a small pouch in your rucksack. We crawled inside to keep the injured warm. The limitations of modern technology became instantly apparent when mobile phones failed to get any connections.
Bruce, our second guide, began an hour's trek downhill where he hoped to pick up a signal and contact the rescue teams. Duncan was bleeding and had turned very pale, his normally ebullient personality silenced by the pain and shock. He was given painkillers and a tourniquet was put on his arm. Jerry didn't think his leg was broken but he convulsed in pain whenever it was knocked.
We could hear the helicopter but, to our despair, the conditions prevented it from landing or setting down a rescue team. Even in the group shelter, it was growing cold and damp. Jonathan was weighing up the alternatives. If we stayed put, it was possible no one would arrive before nightfall which raised the dismal prospect of a freezing, sleepless night at 3,800 metres (12,500ft). But should the injured be moved?
Bruce rejoined us. He had made contact with the emergency services and, as we had suspected, they were trying to reach us. It was getting on for 2pm. Four hours had elapsed since the accident. We decided to act.
With one person supporting Duncan, the rest of us began to lower Jerry down the snow slope. He was wrapped in a plastic survival bag and using his ice axe as a brake. Halfway down, to our enormous relief, we spotted the rescue teams. The helicopter had dropped them lower down the valley and two members were coming up the ridge to our right, another couple up the snow slope. They gave the injured morphine, strapped Jerry into a stretcher and took over the operation, hauling the victims down to a spot where they could be winched to safety.
The helicopter circled, dropped a line and Jerry and Duncan were whisked away. It returned almost immediately to pick up the members of the rescue team. The two guides, myself and the other survivor had a five-hour walk back down to the valley. We arrived back in Saas Grund, shocked and exhausted, after 16 hours on our feet.
The following day, we visited our colleagues at the hospital in Visp. Duncan had an open wound but a clean break. His sense of humour had returned but he couldn't roll his own cigarettes. Jerry had a blood clot in the left calf muscle which required cutting off a layer of fibrous tissue under the skin to relieve the pressure. Otherwise the blood and nerve supply to the leg could have been damaged permanently.
Duncan flew home last Thursday. He's off work for six weeks. Jerry's been transferred to a hospital in Norwich, has had plastic surgery and will need extensive physiotherapy. They're both keen to climb again. As for myself, the jury is still out.
