After Avalanche Deaths, Europe Looks to Prosecute Those Responsible

For American adventurers, particularly skiers and boarders, Europe has always symbolized the promised land of freedom. Ski areas don’t restrict your travel, you can hop off-piste and on at will, and you’re responsible for your own hide. That extends to rescues, too, where you’re still responsible—you can expect to pay the cost of rescuers fetching your butt from the bottom of a crevasse if that’s where you end up. Now, in the wake of a particularly brutal avalanche season, European authorities are looking to extend that responsibility to the repercussions of your actions: In Italy, legislators are debating new laws that would result in jail time or a hefty fine if you endanger someone. In Switzerland, at least six people have been reported to prosecutors for setting off slides that injured others.

Switzerland has no laws directly related to skiing, avalanches, and personal responsibility, but authorities are looking at section 237 of the Swiss penal code, which could allow them to press charges for “interfering with public circulation,” said Heinz Walter Mathys, president of a Swiss commission on snow sports accidents. “People need to know that under Swiss law anyone leaving the marked runs who causes an avalanche like this can be charged.”

After seven people died and five more were injured on January 3 in the Bernese Alps, police spokesman Jean Marie Bornet told the Associated Press, “It’s about sending a message that skiers who don’t respect others can be prosecuted.”

There’s even been talk of having police patrol the ski slopes. In Europe, only Italy and Slovenia allow law enforcement on the pistes to patrol for reckless or dangerous skiers.

In Italy, a video of three snowboarders caught in a slide, along with seven deaths in one slide in the Dolomite Mountains in December, has led to two proposed laws to be introduced to the Italian Senate. One would mandate jail time for causing an avalanche that result in death, the other would slap a 5,000-Euro fine on anyone caught skiing or boarding off-piste of hiking in the mountains after official warnings of dangerous conditions.

After the three snowboarders were caught—it appears they escaped unharmed—local police launched and investigation and searched for the riders to charge them with “provoking an alarm”, which brings with a maximum six-month stay in the slammer.

“These three snowboarders were completely irresponsible and were lucky not to have been killed. The snow was fresh and they were zig-zagging across the slope which is not done on new snow,” a carabinieri spokesman told Britain’s Daily Mail.

Mountaineer Reinhold Messner called the legislation a “hysterical overreaction” and others have argued that education is a far better response.