Famous Swiss mountaineer Erhard Loretan died in a mountaineering accident on the 29th at the age of 52, coincidentally on his birthday.
Loretan was guiding a 38-year-old Swiss client on an ascent of the Gruenegghorn in the Bernese Alps in southern Switzerland when the two fell over 200 meters after descending from an altitude of 4,043 meters. Loretan was killed instantly, while the client sustained serious injuries. The cause of the accident is unclear.
Only a few people in the world have climbed all 14 peaks above 8,000 meters, and Loretan was one of them. He began climbing at the age of 11, summited Pakistan's Nanga Parbat in 1982, and over the next 13 years conquered the other 13 eight-thousanders. In 1986, he shocked the world by reaching the summit of Mount Everest at night without using supplemental oxygen.
Loretan’s mountaineering career was overshadowed by a tragic “killing of his own child” incident. Before Christmas in 2001, Loretan shook his infant son to death after the baby wouldn’t stop crying. He was sentenced to a four-month suspended prison term in 2003 for the incident.