Greek doctor's frozen corpse finally removed from Andes

An autopsy will be conducted at the hospital, before the body can be shipped to Greece.

"They informed me late yesterday evening with a message that the transfer was completed and that we should wait for the Prosecutor to go to the hospital for recognition. An autopsy will be undertaken to determine the causes of death. That's what we are waiting for anxiously. Let's see what happened, what made that such a healthy man fold,"says the head of the mission Panayiotis Kotronaros.

"The coroner will examine the body and then we have to wait for all the necessary bureaucratic procedures to be completed so that the body can reach Greece. The authorities here are very secretive. We do not know whether the process will be completed tomorrow or we will have to wait longer," he pointed out.

Mr. Kotronaros describes the nightmarish moments he experienced after the death of his co-climber and friend, Dimitris Konstantinou, in the frozen Andes.

As he says, all these days, the physician's body lay at an altitude of 6,900 meters.

From there, a rescue crew transferred it to  Aconcagua Park, from where she it taken on foot to 6,000 meters to be picked up by a helicopter and taken to the entrance of the park, at 2,800 meters altitude from where it was placed aboard an ambulance.

"There is no shelter, there is nothing. I took him to a point on the path near a rock and left him where the snow would cover him less and the rescue crews could find him more easily. I wanted to join the rescue team, but they did not let me. I do not know how they found the body and how difficult it was. It was a big shock to me. All these years, in so many ascents, nothing has happened to me. It had to happen with my friend, Dimitris, with whom we had ascended to the highest altitudes for ten years, we did marathons together, he was like a brother ... ", said Mr. Kotronaros.