AN experienced climber fell to his death on holiday in Spain while tackling a ridge which was regarded as a very easy climb, an inquest heard.

Carlo Giuseppe Vigano, also known as Charlie Owens, was scrambling without ropes up the Bernia Ridge near Alicante in March.

Another member of the party was ahead of him and three more, including his wife Edith, had opted to walk round the ridge on a path.

Mrs Vigano, of Lynwood Road, Blackburn, told the inquest in Blackburn: "Climbers expect these things, but you put them to the back of your mind. It's a risk sport, but you think it will never happen to you."

Mrs Vigano said her 69-year-old husband was an experienced climber and she was not at all concerned when he said he would scramble up the ridge because the climb was not particularly dangerous.

She described how the five of them - herself, her husband and three friends - had gone for what they regarded as a walk in the Sierra Bernia to see what it was like. She said the party had taken ropes but her husband, a retired chef, had not felt it necessary to use them.

Mrs Vigano described hearing a shout and realising it was her husband.

He was found lying unconscious on his side as if he had rolled off a rock.

She told the Blackburn coroner Andre Rebello one of the party went to call for help but it seemed "an age" before the helicopter arrived to airlift him to the nearest hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

She added that the ground was damp on the ridge and she realised it could be slippery underfoot but she said her husband was experienced enough to know that.

A post-mortem examination in Spain put the cause of death as traumatic shock due to chest trauma.

Home Office pathologist Dr William Lawler, who carried out a second post-mortem examination in Blackburn, put the cause of death as multiple injuries which he said were entirely consistent with a fall.

Mr Rebello recorded a verdict of accidental death.

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