LONGMIRE, Wash. — A hiker who lost his life high on Mount Rainier lay down in the snow and used his body’s warmth to save his wife from the 70-mph winds of a freak June blizzard, national park officials said.
“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.”
Eduard Burceag died early Tuesday on the mountain, while his wife, Mariana Burceag, 31, and their friend, Daniel Vlad, 34, survived. The survivors were helicoptered off the mountain Wednesday morning, treated for frostbite and released from a Seattle hospital.
Rangers brought down Burceag’s body from Camp Muir at about the 10,000-foot level of the 14,410-foot mountain late Wednesday afternoon, about the same time the National Park Service identified the trio, who were taking a day hike on the mountain Monday when they were trapped by the storm on their way down.
Eduard Burceag, 31, was a software engineer, father of two young sons and an experienced mountaineer.
Gottlieb said the hikers used their experience to dig a trench in the snow and then 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.
Rangers said rescuers reached the couple Tuesday morning after Vlad was able to fight through 5-foot snowdrifts to the shelter at Camp Muir and lead them back to the trench. The three were taken back to Camp Muir, a staging area for climbing the mountain, where Burceag died.
Cristian Burceag said his older brother, Eduard, moved from Romania to America eight years ago and fell in love with Seattle, its mountains, its opportunities.
Reached by telephone in Romania, where he and his brother grew up, he told The Seattle Times he still couldn’t talk about the tragedy.
“I can’t find words about him,” Burceag said. “When he left for America he took his life in his hands and made a great career.”
Eduard Burceag worked for Active Voice, a Seattle-based company that specializes in helping companies transition from voice mail to computer communications and messaging.
Cristian Burceag said his mother was visiting his brother and was watching the two boys while Eduard and Mariana hiked to Camp Muir.
He said he was not surprised his brother died shielding his wife from the blizzard.
“He was a hero for us,” he said. “I’m sure he would do that. He knew very well that his children needed a lot of their mother and that was the main thing in his life.”
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