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Austrian ski jumper partially paralysed after crash

Austrian ski jumper Lukas Müller has been left partially paralysed after a violent crash during a test ski flying run on Wednesday on the Kulm hill in Styria.

Published: 15 January 2016 16:46 CET
Austrian ski jumper partially paralysed after crash
Lukas Müller. File photo: Tsui/Wikimedia

Doctors said on Friday that the 23-year-old could not move his legs but had some residual sensitivity, and therefore they had diagnosed him with incomplete paraplegia.

Depending on how badly his spinal cord is damaged, he may be able to regain some motor function, but doctors said it could be “months or even years” before the extent of his injury is clear.

He underwent an operation on his lower cervical spine on Wednesday and is currently being monitored and stabilized in the intensive care unit at Graz hospital.

Head of the ICU, Professor Philipp Metnitz, said that he had spoken to Müller the day after the operation and that he was aware of the extent of his injuries, and that they would be talking to him about rehabilitation in the next few days.

CLIMATE CRISIS

Austria ‘likely to be ice-free within 45 years’

Austria is set to become largely "ice-free" within 45 years, the country's Alpine Club warned Friday, as two of its glaciers last year melted by more than 100 metres.

Published: 6 April 2024 12:17 CEST
Austria 'likely to be ice-free within 45 years'

Amid growing concerns over the effects of extreme warming on glaciers around the world, the latest report by the Austrian Alpine Club (OeAV) showed that rapid glacial retreat over the past seven years had accelerated.

The study found that 93 Austrian glaciers observed by the organisation retreated by 23.9 metres (78.4 feet) on average last year, marking the third-biggest glacier melt since measurements began in 1891.

Two of the glaciers showed especially drastic declines, with the Pasterze shrinking by 203.5 metres and the Rettenbachferner by 127 metres.

The 2023 readings came after the worst year on record for glacier melt in Austria, with glaciers shrinking by 28.7 metres (94.2 feet) on average in 2022.

Faced with extreme warming in the Alps, glacial ice in Austria could largely disappear within 45 years, the Alpine Club warned, adding that restrictive climate protection measures were introduced too late.

“In 40 to 45 years, all of Austria will be pretty much ice-free,” Andreas Kellerer-Pirklbauer, head of the Alpine Club’s glacier measurement service, told reporters on Friday.

The OeAV urged increased protection of glaciers as part of overall efforts to sustain biodiversity, noting that expansions of ski resorts had put Alpine regions “under constant pressure”.

According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), major glaciers worldwide suffered the largest loss of ice since records began in 1950, “driven by extreme melt in both western North America and Europe”.

In Switzerland, where the WMO is based, Alpine glaciers have lost 10 percent of their volume in the past two years alone.

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