March• 2018 | 53using searchlights and night-vision
equipment.
Meanwhile, Daniel Petek and the
rest of his group are still out there,
braving the snowstorm. They have
been standing in the same spot call-
ing out Nici’s name into the gloom for
two and a half hours.
At around seven o’clock, Dani’s
phone rings. It’s von Dach. He asks
the tourists to go back down into the
valley. “Once it’s dark, it gets a lot
more dangerous – and we don’t want
to have to start searching for more
than one person.”
In the meantime, police officers
from the canton of Uri are checkingthe local hostels in Hospental to make
sure the missing teenager isn’t sitting
in a nice, warm bar somewhere.FEARING THE WORST
Up in his mountain shelter, Nicolas
has devoured his first portion of spa-
ghetti. Now, he goes out to collect
some snow to melt so he can fill up
the empty bottles with hot water to
help keep him warm. He strips down
to his underpants and lays his clothes
on top of the blanket to conserve his
body heat as efficiently as possible.
Suddenly, he hears the sound of
whirring rotor blades again – it’s
music to his ears. Has the SwissPilot Stefan Bucheli, who, with Christian von Dach (inset), rescued the teenagerPHOTO: (LEFT) REGA
D R