The International alpine solidarity prize goes to Sigfried Stangier, alpine rescue helicopter pilot. A man who did of his job a real mission, showing big professional competence and engage driving an indispensable means for human life rescue.
Stangier, 54, Air Zermatt pilot, during his carreer has risked arriving where others weren’t arrived. He was the first pilot, for example, to do a night rescue with the windlass.
His tenacity and courage are recognized at international level too. Indeed he was the first European to receive the Helicopter Heroism Award, the highest American recognition given to who distinguished himself in the air rescue.
“To be a good pilot is better then to have been a courageous man” he says speaking of his own job, conscious that in a rescue operation with the helicopter there always is an unknown part, every fly is different from the others and the risk is always very high. But when, up there the mountains, someone is in trouble waiting for a rescue from the sky, Stangier is always able to find the strengh to face the more problematic situation too.
