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A 53-year-old woman was killed while descending a 3,000-feet mountain after her husband used a smartphone app to navigate instead of a paper map which apparently showed the wrong path, media reported.
In March, Jane Wilson and her husband Gary Wilson were looking for a safe route off the Tryfan peak in Snowdonia, Wales at dusk when the accident took place. The matter was under investigation, telegraph.co.uk reported on Friday.
The couple, both experienced mountain walkers and scramblers for six years, had decided not to climb the summit but instead headed across the mountain’s west face using Wilson’s smartphone, the report said.
Gary was quoted as saying to the coroner that his wife went a short distance ahead of him to look for a suitable route.
He then described how he heard a kind of exclamation, then another, followed by the sound of rock fall.
Jane, who worked at Manchester University as a librarian, fell 30 feet down a vertical cliff, fracturing her skull and sustaining other severe injuries.
Realizing his wife had fallen, Wilson climbed to a safer ledge and raised an alarm.
He was later led to safety by members of the Ogwen Valley Mountain Rescue Team, who found his wife’s body 500 feet below.
Chris Lloyd, who was among the Ogwen Rescue team, described the route the pair had taken as “not a straightforward path”.
Mountain rescue teams present at the investigation said it is always better to use a paper map and compass to navigate instead of or in addition to any electronic navigation aids.
(Published in an arrangement with IANS)
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