"Straw in the head" Sneaker tourists climb to the top of a mountain with a baby - rescue mission
In the middle of ice and snow at 2,500 meters: despite warnings, a couple climbs Poland's highest mountain with a nine-month-old baby and puts themselves in danger. A mountain guide rescues the child.
23.10.2025, 13:29
dpa
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- A Lithuanian couple wanted to climb the 2500-metre-high Rysy peak in the Tatra Mountains with a baby - without crampons.
- A mountain guide brought the child to safety, the parents later descended themselves.
- The risky ascent caused outrage and criticism of the parents online.
A couple from Lithuania wanted to climb Poland's highest mountain in ice and snow with their nine-month-old baby and got into trouble. A Polish mountain guide brought the baby to safety, as several Polish media reported. The parents were also able to descend safely from the summit afterwards.
Mountain guides and rescue teams had warned the couple about poor visibility, snow and icy paths, mountain guide Szymon Stoch told the Tatromaniak portal. Despite this, the pair stuck to their plan to climb the almost 2,500-metre-high summit of Mount Rysy in the High Tatras on the Polish-Slovak border. The pair didn't even have crampons with them, just light spikes for their shoes.
Facebook clip documents risky ascent
A video published on Facebook shows the mother and father with the baby strapped to their stomachs as they struggle to work their way up an icy staircase in the rugged mountain face.
But once they reached the summit, the couple never came back down. The parents had asked other climbers to lend them their crampons, reported Stoch. They had refused for safety reasons. When he offered to alert the Lithuanian couple to the mountain rescue service for a rescue mission, the two refused: they had not taken out the appropriate insurance.
Outrage online about parents
In the end, Stoch decided to take the baby to a safe place himself. The parents managed the descent alone. The report and the pictures caused outrage online about the parents' behavior, as the portal Onet wrote. "Parents with straw in their heads" and "stupidity in its purest form" wrote some users. There were also calls for the family court and for the authorities to be notified.
