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Ed i t o r’ s note: The following story was written by Matt Kinnear, the editor-inchief of the Inside Lacrosse magazine, which posted the story last week. It is reprinted with his permission.
It was only a second or two, and just a little bit of snowfall sliding down the mountain. It was surprisingly quiet, too.
“Then it was a massive avalanche sliding down,” says VMI sophomore midfielder Erik Gottmann. “It was definitely a scary sight to see.”
On Christmas afternoon, Gottmann was skiing with his brothers and some family friends in Austria. He had no idea he’d be part of what’s being called a “Christmas Miracle in the Alps,” as he and his brothers rushed to aid 10 skiers trapped in the downfall.
Gottmann, and his brothers Hans and Troy, who go to Ballston Spa (N.Y.), were about 100 yards away when the avalanche occurred. They had their phones and recorded, then quickly decided: We need to step in.
“There’s no paramedics, there’s no ski patrol and no one else to help,” Erik said of he and his brothers’ immediate instinct to run to the victims. “So until someone gets there, it’s not my job, but it’s the right thing to do.”
They skied over and took off their skis to help find people. The first Erik encountered was fully perpendicular in the snow up to his neck and cut up on his hand. They helped dig out his upper body and legs. He spoke German, and Erik speaks enough of it go get through the language barrier.
“And I think at that moment, I wasn’t even really thinking I was like, ‘Well, there’s one guy buried here. There’s a couple of people up higher on the trail. I just need to see what I can do to help,’” Erik says.
A paramedic came in to airlift a victim about 20 minutes later, but the Gottman brothers still helped with the recovery for about an hour until more police helicopters arrived on the scene. According to news reports, about 200 authorities started a rescue effort to account for everyone on the mountain in western Austria, which was experiencing warmer than usual temperatures that likely contributed to the avalanche.
All 10 who were in its path survived.
The video taken by his brother, Troy, a 2023 committed to Saint Rose, was crucial for authorities to determine they had rescued all the skiers from the mountain.
The trip to Austria was a family trip to where the Gottmanns’ parents, Steven and Kristan, had their honeymoon. The avalanche level came down in the ensuing days before their trip ended. Now Erik turns his attention to VMI, where he starts practice Sunday (Jan. 15). He plans to enter the military after college.
This year he’s switching to d-mid for a VMI team that has been young and had positive momentum last year, winning four games and making the conference tournament. They moved to the MAAC for this season.
Gottmann talked to coach James Purpura in the days after, and he said he represented the program’s acronym “ACES” to a T. “That’s attitude, compete, effort and sacrifice,” Gottmann recalls his coach saying. “You displayed that to perfection.” -“Erik is a selfless young man who exemplifies all the personal qualities we look for in our program,” Purpura said in a comment he made for the story about the rescue that was posted on the VMI athletics website. “This fall, we moved his position from the offensive side of the ball to more of a defensive role, and without hesitation he gladly accepted the challenge. He answered with a team-first mentality saying ‘Coach, wherever the team needs me.’ When I found out about his Christmas day heroics, I was proud but also not surprised because of the young man Erik is.”
