Survivor of Deadly Blizzard Lost Sight of Friend When He Fell Down Mountain. He Never Saw Her Alive Again

NEED TO KNOW

• A survivor is speaking out after five hikers died in a blizzard in Patagonia, Chile

• “I think we all thought we were not getting out of this,” said the hiker, who fell while trying to make his way down to base camp from the icy mountain

• One of the climbers who died was his good friend, Victoria Bond

A hiker is sharing the horror he experienced during a blizzard in the Torres del Paine National Park in Patagonia, Chile, which killed five people, including one of his good friends.

“I think we all thought we were not getting out of this. It felt like we were in a nightmare,” Christian Aldridge, a 41-year-old British TV director and producer, told The Times from his hospital bed in Chile following the devastating storm.

Earlier this month, the National Forestry Corporation (CONAF) shared that two Mexican nationals, two Germans, and one British national had been found dead amid “extreme” sub-zero weather conditions. Officials later said that wind speeds were up to 118 mph.

The victims who died on Monday, Nov. 17, were later identified as Cristina Calvillo Tovar and Julian Garcia Pimentel from Mexico and Nadine Lichey and Andreas Von Pein from Germany, according to The Times.

The fifth victim was Aldridge’s friend, Victoria Bond, a 40-year-old British woman, according to the paper.

Bond, Aldridge and three other friends from the U.K. — Hayley Newnham, 41, Matt Smith, 39, and Tom Player, 39 — were all “semi-experienced hikers” who had previously climbed part of the Himalayas, the paper reported.

Four days into their hike, the five friends found themselves a part of a bigger group as they began trekking through the John Gardner Pass. Then the winter storm struck.

“I find it very difficult to convey how horrific it was,” Aldridge told the paper. “It was suffocating, wind so powerful that you had to sit down and curl into a ball and turn your back to it so it didn’t knock you down the mountain.”

Realizing they were a couple of miles from their base camp, the hikers all tried to take refuge, but the space had been closed by park rangers, who had gone to vote in the mandatory presidential election the day before, accordingThe Times. At that point, the team made the hard decision to go back down the mountain to base camp in a line, but the mountain had become a sheet of ice, Aldridge told the paper. He ended up falling and thought he was going to die.

“I was just picking up more and more speed and I thought I can’t keep accelerating like this,” the 41-year-old told the outlet. “I aimed for some rocks to break the speed to stop me.”

Though he survived the fall, visibility became extremely limited and people were forced to make their way down the mountain, one agonizing step at a time.

It was only once they arrived at base camp that the group realized some of their members were missing, according to The Times.

Aldridge doesn’t know who was the last person to see Bond alive. “We were all together at the point where I fell and slipped down the mountain,” he told the paper. “I saw her then and after that I didn’t see her.”

Aldridge has alleged that no one treated the emergency with any urgency when they initially reached the camp.

“I was shocked,” he told the BBC.  “I went and spoke to the staff personally and said, ‘We’re missing a friend, we think she’s still on the mountain, you need to get a search party.’ “

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He alleged that park staff told him they need to prepare dinner and check in new guests, according to the outlet. That prompted two people from the group and a staff member to search for the missing people themselves, according to The Times.

Aldridge, who was too injured to participate in the search effort, said that the makeshift rescue teams found three people, one man who had already died and two women who died later. The next day, Bond and the fifth victim were found deceased by park rangers, according to the outlet.

“We deeply regret the tragedy that occurred in Torres del Paine National Park last Monday, November 17th,” CONAF said in a translated announcement, “and send our sincere condolences to the families of the deceased and to all those who have experienced very difficult times in Torres del Paine National Park.”

The organization clarified that on Nov. 16, election day, there were the same number of personnel at the park as the previous day. The emergency protocol was activated after “first alerts” were received and the weather began to change, resulting in the deployment of a range of agencies and first responders, according to CONAF.

“We are deeply affected by this tragedy, the most serious in terms of human lives lost in Torres del Paine national park,” Vértice, the company that oversees the camps inside the park, told The Times. “Since Monday, when the tragedy occurred, we have been in contact with the authorities and have offered our full support.”

CONAF said that an internal investigation had been launched to “determine any potential liability related to this accident.”

CONAF and Vértice did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s requests for comment.

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