Two friends who died on a mountain ridge during extreme winter conditions tried calling 999 but the alert was not escalated “as it should have been”, according to a police expert at an inquest.
The bodies of Eddie Hill, 20, and Jayden Long, 19, both from Dereham, Norfolk, were found by a mountain rescue team in Eryri, also known as Snowdonia, on 19 February.
They died on Crib y Ddysgl, a ridge that peaks at 1,065m (3,494ft), less than a mile north of Yr Wyddfa’s summit and linking it to the notoriously narrow ridge of Crib Goch.
The mountain rescue team said it did not have enough information about the location or nature of the 999 call to act immediately.
Philip Benbow, lead co-ordinator of Llanberis Mountain Rescue team told Gwynedd Coroner’s Court in Caernarfon he had been alerted by North Wales Police on the evening of 18 February to an abandoned 999 call made three hours earlier from a male who was thought to be on Crib y Ddysgl.
The call was later identified as coming from Long’s mobile phone.
After further enquiries, including contact with family members, mountain rescue teams and the coastguard helicopter searched the last known position of the two men but found no trace.
A decision was made to continue the search at first light.
A search and rescue dog team joined the mountain rescue teams for the search on the morning of 19 February.
At 10:46 two members of the team spotted a possible trail in the snow, and a drone and the coastguard helicopter were sent to the location.
The men’s bodies were found and their deaths confirmed.
Benbow described the scene on the ridge as “full winter conditions”.
He said he was told by Long’s family that he had been walking in the Lake and Peak District but this was his first time in Eryri.
While the pair had spiked footwear they did not have crampons nor ice axes, Benbow said.
He said there was signage at various parts of the mountain range warning that certain routes require experienced climbers with Crib Goch described as an “extreme scramble”.
Benbow said at the time he was first alerted there was not enough information about the location and nature of the call to deploy immediately.
Det Con James Lloyd from North Wales Police’s professional standards department told the hearing that although attempts were made by the control room to make further contact with the 999 caller “the incident wasn’t escalated as it should have been”.
He said there had been “learning” for staff and the force to pass on similar calls to mountain rescuers sooner for them to assess.
Long’s father, questioning Lloyd via videolink, described the situation as “incompetence”.
Lloyd said he found the force did not contribute to the deaths of the two men.
Assistant coroner for North West Wales Sarah Riley said both men died of multiple traumatic injuries.
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