King Charles recently made a rare comment about surviving the 1988 avalanche that claimed the life of his friend, Major Hugh Lindsay.
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According to The Times, King Charles discussed the tragedy while hosting members of the Assynt Mountain Rescue Team at the Castle of Mey. He called his survival a “close thing.”
“He spoke of the near miss he had in that avalanche in the context of the dangers mountains contain,” team leader Ben Dyson said. “Obviously after all these years it is still much in his memory, but it had given him an insight into the valuable work we do and the dangers we face.”
The incident happened on March 10, 1988, while the royal was with a group of friends at the Swiss resort of Klosters. It was reported that a snowslide occurred at approximately 300 feet above the area on Mount Gotschnagrat, which is located in the Plessur Alps.
Lindsay, an equerry to Queen Elizabeth and a friend of Charles’s, was swept away during the avalanche. Another friend, Patti Palmer-Tomkinson, was seriously injured.
King Charles, as well as others from the group, managed to get to safety. Lindsay and Palmer-Tomkinson were recovered by search teams. However, Lindsay was pronounced dead after being airlifted to a hospital in Davos.
Princess Diana Had Spoken About Lindsay’s Passing Following the Avalanche
In the 25th anniversary edition of Diana: Her True Story – In Her Own Words, author Andrew Morton recalled Diana’s reaction to Lindsay’s death.
The late princess and the king’s former sister-in-law, Sarah Ferguson, were not on the slopes when the devastating avalanche occurred. Diana was notably feeling unwell while Sarah, who was pregnant with Princess Beatrice, suffered a fall earlier in the afternoon.
“She landed upside-down in a ditch and had come back shaken, pale and exhausted. I put her to bed and both of us were in the chalet and we heard this helicopter go up,” Diana shared.
Both women knew something was wrong after seeing the helicopter. “We heard him say: ‘There’s been an accident,” Diana recalled a royal aide telling her.
After forcing him to explain, the royal aide said, “There’s been an accident, and one of the party is dead.”
Diana then spoke about Lindsay. “Fergie and I were closer to Hugh than Charles ever was. Hugh just felt sorry for Charles. He was very good with all the members of my husband’s family, he was always a star trouper.”
The princess further stated that she insisted on bringing Lindsay’s body home the following day. “We’re going home, to take the body home to Sarah,” Diana said about his wife, who was also pregnant. “We owe it to Sarah to take the body home. And we’re not going skiing tomorrow.”
Lindsay’s widow stayed with Diana at Highgrove while she mourned.
“The whole thing was ghastly and what a nice person he was,” Diana added. “Out of all the people who went it should never have been him.”