Did British hiker take a wrong turn before plunging to her death?
A HIKER plunged 100ft to her death in front of her horrified partner after apparently taking the wrong route on a mountain range in Italy.
Teacher Louise Atkinson, 55, wandered onto a treacherous climbing trail through the Dolomites, lost her balance and fell.
Her partner John Dickinson, 58, desperately called rescue teams and medics rushed to an area known as the Catinaccio where they found her body.
Doctors said she died after hitting her head on rocks.
Rescuers said the pair had intended to take the easy hiking path but inadvertently found themselves on a high-level ‘via ferrata’ – a precipitous high-altitude route that usually involves grappling with iron cords, rungs and ladders.
A rescue service spokesman said: ‘That’s why she was not clipped onto an iron cable. She had none of the right equipment — no harness or carabiner [safety clip] or helmet. Nothing.
‘They realised their mistake and turned round but at some point she fell.’
He added: ‘ This via ferrata is not particularly challenging, but of course it depends on who is tackling it. If it’s someone who... is not used to the mountains, then it could be a very extreme experience.’
The couple, from near Ripon, North Yorkshire, have three grown-up sons. It is understood at least two of the children flew out after the tragedy on Sunday afternoon and are staying with Mr Dickinson in the village of Castelrotto, where the couple had been on holiday.
It was the second death on the route in two weeks after a 55-yearold Italian man was killed on July 16. The route is demanding, with an ascent and descent of 850 metres and an estimated completion time of five hours.
The via ferrata [‘iron way’] has its origins in the First World War when Italian and Austro-Hungarian troops vied to occupy high positions in the Italian Alps, fixing iron ladders, ropes and cables on to rocks so they could transport weapons and food. Neighbours in Yorkshire last night expressed their heartbreak at the death of Miss Atkinson.
One resident said: ‘It is such a shock. I only spoke to her the day before she went on holiday and she was really looking forward to the adventure.
‘She was super-fit and loved her running. John and Louise would go running and cycling together.’
Another neighbour said: ‘ She was a teacher and only broke up from school last week.
‘They left for their holidays at the weekend. She loved teaching and the pupils.’ Mr Dickinson runs a cleaning equipment firm called JD Supplies.
The couple regularly posted pictures on social media of the family hiking in the Yorkshire Dales with their dog Daisy. Other snaps showed them on ski holidays and at a music festival in Berlin in 2018.
The rescue service spokesman said: ‘The woman’s children... have arrived to formally identify the body and once the all- clear has been given...she will be repatriated back to Britain.’
The tragedy follows the death of a British man in Lake Garda last week after he dived in to save his teenage son.
‘They realised their mistake’