A 56-year-old Canadian woman died after being caught in a sudden snowstorm in Italy’s Dolomite mountains and her companion was being treated for severe hypothermia, Italy’s Alpine Rescue Corps said Friday.
The two climbers, exhausted and suffering hypothermia, called for help Thursday evening after being hit by the snowstorm about two kilometers (more than a mile) from a mountain refuge. The hikers were not identified by name or hometown.
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Rescuers reached them, but bad weather scuttled two attempts to evacuate the woman, whose condition was worsening, by helicopter. She died later on the mountain.
Rescuers put up a tent and shelter the 56-year-old male hiker overnight until the storm cleared and a helicopter could rescue him early Friday. He was being treated at a hospital in the northern Italian city of Bolzano.
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