Safety equipment, mountain rescue and accident documentation
Avalanche safety equipment, the avalanche transceiver (LVS), shovel, probe and, increasingly, the airbag, is not expressly prescribed by the StGB (Austrian Criminal Code) or by a dedicated statute, but it is a central reference point for any examination of the duty of care. The recommendations of the Austrian Alpine Club (ÖAV), the Naturfreunde and the Curatorship for Alpine Safety set as a minimum standard that every person moving in Alpine ski-touring terrain should carry a transceiver, shovel and probe ready for use; an airbag is recommended on slopes above 30 degrees at danger level 3 and higher. Anyone starting a tour without this equipment and then caught in an avalanche fulfils, under the prevailing doctrine and practice, the element of a breach of the duty of care under § 80 para. 1 StGB, possibly also the element of particular dangerousness under § 81 para. 1 no. 1 StGB. In civil proceedings the absence of equipment reduces damages claims noticeably under § 1304 ABGB (contributory negligence); in coverage questions, the insurer may additionally invoke § 61 VersVG (Austrian Insurance Contract Act) to withhold benefits in whole or in part.
After an avalanche incident or tour accident, mountain rescue is the first and decisive point of contact. The Austrian Mountain Rescue Service (ÖBRD) works hand in hand with the air rescue services, the Christophorus fleet operated by the ÖAMTC, Heli Austria, Martin Flugrettung, and in the border region also Swiss Air Glaciers and Bavarian rescue flights. Alarm calls go out via the European emergency number 112 or the Alpine emergency number 140. From the moment of the alarm a legally relevant chain begins: first-line treatment by the rescue crews, documentation of injuries, search for buried persons (transceiver search, probing, rescue dogs), recovery and transport to the nearest trauma hospital (UKH Salzburg, Clinics Innsbruck, Landesklinikum Schwarzach, BKH Lienz). The intervention reports of the mountain rescue and the air rescue become central evidence in criminal and civil proceedings; they record the site of the incident, the depth of burial, the timing of recovery, the initial vital parameters and the destination of transport. A tour leader or group member who inadequately briefs the incident command or conceals their own contribution to the danger situation additionally risks proceedings under § 288 StGB (false testimony) or § 289 StGB (false testimony before an administrative authority).
Accident documentation includes securing the site of the event. Police and the public prosecutor require precise information about the avalanche release area, the fracture-line height, the slope angle and the snow mechanics (compression wave, fracture surface, layered structure of the snowpack). Tour leaders or surviving participants should, as far as the safety situation permits, take photographs, save coordinates via GPS, preserve the avalanche bulletin of the relevant province used before the tour, and hand the names and contacts of all group members to the incident command. This documentation later becomes the basis of the expert opinion of the court-sworn avalanche specialist in the criminal proceedings; it regularly decides whether an indictment is filed or the proceedings are discontinued under § 190 StPO. Whoever enters the first interrogation as a suspect without documentation of his or her own faces the substantial task of defending their own standard of care from memory against a written file. For general liability following slope accidents see slope accidents, for insurance questions insurance law, for the liability of cableway operators cableway and lift operator liability. For criminal defence in avalanche proceedings see strafsachen.at.