The Guardia Civil had a hard time rescuing three young mountaineers from the bottom of the Barranco de Poqueira – 15 hours in all. It wasn’t until a helicopter arrived to winch them out of the El Hoyo that the rescue operation was complete.

The G.C. mountain-rescue team had spent the night trying to locate Juan Manuel Hernández, from Granada and brothers Eloy & Alfonso Fernández from Málaga, after they managed to get into a place they were unable to get out of, thanks to one of them having dislocated his shoulder. They had set out at midday.

The gully carries a lot of water at this time of year and the week of the excursion had seen heavy rainfall. Things started to go wrong when one of them got tangled in his abseiling rope. A companion tried to help him, but fell into a deep pool, and although he wasn’t injured by the fall, he was unable to help his tangled mate. In the meantime, with the abseiling line in a knot, he was being pounded mercilessly by the waterfall that he had been attempting to descend – he was in danger of literally drowning in it.

The third member, impressed by the kamikaze instincts of his friends, decided to carry on and get help, which took him hours.

Their continued absence began to worry the families, who got in contact with the Guardia Civil in Órgiva. A patrol car was sent out and the excursionists’ cars were located. By this time the third member had found his way out and explained the situation to the police, who then planned a rescue operation involving finding two people in separate locations, although not very far apart, admittedly.

By this time, night had fallen, but the two rescue teams set out, descending the barranco in the darkness, cheering themselves up, no doubt, with the thought of the good tweaking that they would give to the excursionists… On top of it all, it was raining and the river was rising.

The sheer volume of water descending the gully forced the rescue teams to descend the cliff-like sides of the gully, to keep away from the surging water. With the arrival of daylight, one of the teams decided to gain height to see if they could spot the trapped men below, co-ordinating their efforts with a helicopter that had joined in the search shortly after dawn.
Fifteen hours it had taken, darkness, rainfall, and hazards galore, to rescue two excursionists because they had not consulted the weather forecast before setting out…Off with their pods!