Austrian 'Walk Themselves To Death'

It's death in Lederhosen for walkers according to doomladen Austrian health group Secure Life. They say dozens of people 'walk themselves to death' each year in the country's mountains because they are unfit.

The report claimes that 50 per-cent of the 150-odd walkers who die annually suffer from hearth or circulatory failure - so that's cardiac arrests and strokes then - a problem exacerbated by the inability of ambulances to reach.

Not surprising really in a country where, until recently, farmers were dynamiting cow carcasses due to the difficulty and cost of recovering them otherwise. Secure Life give no figures for the numbers of cows who die annually in the Austrian Alps, but we bet they outnumber walkers by a country mile - not surprising really given that few ambulances are large enough to take a cow.

If you must read more about Austrian walkers dropping dead, check this story on Ananova. Thanks to Rob Sutherland for bringing this strangely pointless article to our attention...