A guide who led a doomed rafting expedition resulting in the deaths of three Irish people and one from Britain, told a Salzburg court he was powerless to act as a safety rope snapped leaving him and his passengers drifting to disaster. Mr Gottfried Eder (31), told a manslaughter trial yesterday that the raft had plunged over the weir shortly after breaking free of the safety line that could have saved the lives of everyone on board in June 1999.
He said: "It probably only took seconds but it seemed like an age as we drifted towards the weir. Then the raft went over the edge and tipped up, throwing everyone in the water.
"I was also caught in the current and slammed to the bottom of the river. I nearly died even though we all had life vests on. I was the last one to be swept into quieter waters."
Mr Eder is on trial with a British-born tour operator Mr Trevor Hamer (47), who arranged the expedition and owned the raft. Both have denied manslaughter through negligence of the four rafters who died, as well as grievous bodily harm through negligence for injuries caused to the three British holidaymakers who survived.
The court heard how the Salzach river had been swollen with freezing water from Alpine ice fields - and that the guides had debated whether it was safe to go ahead.
Mr Hamer, a father of three, who owns the Taxenbach Rafting Centre, told the court: "We usually start to think about whether it is safe to go ahead when the water is somewhere between 180cm and 220cm deep. On the day of the accident it was at 205cm."
Mr Eder said the seven holidaymakers had been laughing and joking as they posed for a photograph. Minutes later four of them were dead. The accident claimed the lives of Irishmen Mr Alan Daly (35); Mr John McGeough (28), who was living in London, and Ms Emma Duke (28), from Dublin as well as Bedfordshire resident Mr Mark Richardson.
The case continues.