French pensioner Georges Aussonac has been rescued by mountain police after surviving two days stranded alone in a deep ravine in the Ariège region of southwestern France.
The 78-year-old disappeared during a mushroom-picking excursion at an altitude of 1,300 metres before falling down a steep slope, leaving him with five cracked ribs and severe hypothermia. Gendarmes winched him to safety after a friend spotted him raising an arm from the canyon floor.
Ariège is a mountainous department in the Occitanie region of southwestern France, situated along the Pyrenees range on the border with Andorra and Spain. The area is known for its steep topography, dense forests, and sudden weather changes, where elevation climbs rapidly from valley floors to peaks exceeding 2,000 metres. Searching for wild mushrooms is a common seasonal activity across the French Pyrenees, but off-trail navigation in steep terrain carries significant risks for hikers who become disoriented.
Lost along the riverbank
The ordeal began when Aussonac went into the mountains with a friend to search for mushrooms. After walking for two hours at an altitude of 1,300 metres, the retiree felt tired and decided to return down the mountain on his own while his companion continued searching.
However, Aussonac quickly lost his way as he followed the line of a river. Speaking from his hospital bed to news cameras for French television network TF1, he explained that he spent hours walking up and down the slopes without ever finding the path. As darkness fell at the end of the first day, he ended up falling asleep in the forest.
The following morning, Aussonac resumed walking in an attempt to locate the trail, but lost his footing and fell down a slope into a ravine. Injured in the fall and unable to move, he managed to crawl to shelter. Although his mobile phone could not connect to a network signal, he kept the device turned on and tried to place calls whenever he saw the search helicopter passing overhead.
Mountain rescue operations in the French Pyrenees rely heavily on specialized air units of the National Gendarmerie equipped with winches and thermal equipment. When mobile network coverage is spotty in remote valleys, search teams rely on periodic cell tower connections, known as pinging, to narrow down the general coordinates of a missing person's mobile handset.
Discovery on the cliff edge
While Aussonac lay injured, his family and friends scoured the surrounding forest for two days, searching the terrain meter by meter. His survival was aided by a few cereal bars and a small supply of water that he had carried in his pack during his two nights spent outdoors.
The breakthrough came when a friend named Messa and a colleague named Gabriel risked descending along the edge of a cliff to get a clear line of sight into the canyon below and above. Looking down into the ravine, Messa spotted Aussonac lying roughly 50 metres away, before Gabriel pointed out that the missing man was moving and had raised his arm.
When rescuers reached Aussonac, he was alive but suffering from hypothermia, with a body temperature close to 30 degrees Celsius. Normal human core body temperature is approximately 37 degrees Celsius, and a drop to 30 degrees represents moderate to severe hypothermia, a condition that rapidly impairs body function and requires urgent medical attention.
Describing the search by telephone, Messa said he would never have given up and was prepared to remain in the mountains for as long as necessary to find his friend. Aussonac expressed his gratitude to Messa, while his wife praised her husband's resilience, stating that he possessed a fighting spirit and never gave up. Suffering only five cracked ribs, Aussonac was scheduled for discharge from hospital on Thursday, fully aware of how close he came to losing his life.
