Featured Image Credit: Newsflash
Topics: World News
Poppy Bilderbeck
A man has spoken out after his girlfriend fell to her death while they were on a hike up a mountain in Italy.
On Saturday (August 10), Valentina Fino and Andrea Pedata went for a hike up the Pietra Tagliata pass in the Italian Apennines.
However, the 31-year-old nurse would not end up coming back down from the mountain range alongside her boyfriend.
Hiking up and scaling mountains was a hobby of the duo who would often spend time in the outdoors whenever Valentina had a day off from caring with patients with cancer.
On Saturday, Andrea took a video of Valentina as she climbed up a rock face reportedly within seconds.
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The video shows the nurse in hiking boots, shorts and with a backpack on and her hat attached to the bag, confidently guiding herself up the rock face with the help of some wires too.
Devastatingly, it would be the last footage Andrea ever captured of his girlfriend as just several hours later tragedy would strike.
It's reported the pair were navigating their way along the Barbarossa trail when Valentina slipped and fell around 100 meters.
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Andrea recalled: "I heard a scream and saw her fall."
Andrea immediately called for help and tried his best to reach Valentina, but she had sustained fatal injuries.
Police and firefighter helicopters later attended the scene and Valentina's body was recovered.
Her funeral is set to take place in the parish church of Santa Maria Assunta in Borgo Panigale today.
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Andrea resolved: "I'm destroyed, it hurts too much.
"We had many plans together about life and excursions. The only consolation is that she left doing what she loved most in the world."
According to the Alpines Mountain Rescue Website, in 2022 the Alpine and Speleological Rescue team 'intervened in 10,367 rescue missions, an increase of 9.8 percent compared to 2021'.
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It explains: "The causes of the interventions are mainly due to three factors: the fall/slip (45.9 percent of the interventions), the inability during the activity carried out (26.3 percent) and the illness (13.7 percent) . Bad weather (3.7 percent) and anaphylactic shock (0.80 percent) follow with decidedly lower values.
"The activities most involved and causing accidents and related injuries are hiking (50.2 percent of cases) , mountain biking (9.0 percent, with a strong growth trend from year to year in the last 5 years) , alpine skiing (7.8 percent), classic mountaineering (5.4%) and mushroom hunting (4.2 percent). Several interventions were carried out during hunting activities (1.1 percent)."
If you have experienced a bereavement and would like to speak with someone in confidence, contact The Compassionate Friends on (877) 969-0010.