A Hero - Eduard Burceag
People like this are far and few between. A true Hero.
From the
Seattle Post-Intelligencer:
Rainier hiker 'sacrificed his life for his wife'
As blizzard raged, his body's warmth protected her
Battered by a blizzard on the slopes of this mountain, Eduard Burceag lay down in a snow trench, trying to use his body's warmth to protect his wife, Mariana, from the 70-mph winds.
Rangers alerted to an emergency at 10,000 feet found Burceag in the snow Tuesday morning. He had no pulse and would later be declared dead.
"He basically sacrificed his life for his wife," David Gottlieb, lead climbing ranger at Mount Rainier, said Wednesday. "Imagine you're laying in the snow. It drains you."
And more:
Eduard Burceag was a software engineer, father of two sons and an experienced mountaineer. It was that experience he apparently called on amid the blizzard.
The hikers dug a trench in the snow, Gottlieb said.
Eduard Burceag lay on the ground. His wife was sandwiched between him and Vlad, Gottlieb said. Despite the pleas of his wife and Vlad, he refused to move.
Eduard Burceag and Vlad were engineers with Seattle-based Active Voice, a communications company. Both men are from Romania.
Burceag's 31-year-old wife and a family friend, Daniel Vlad, 35, of Bellevue survived the ordeal. An Army helicopter from Mount Rainier plucked them off the mountain Wednesday. And after a brief stay at Madigan Army Hospital and Harborview Medical Center, the two were released.
As he was an 'experienced mountaineer', the party should have been a lot better prepared for bad weather. This does not take away from Eduard's heroism though -- he sacrificed himself to guarantee the safety of his wife and good friend.
Posted by DaveH at June 12, 2008 12:50 PM
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