A BRITISH climber has had her leg amputated after being buried by an avalanche in the Swiss Alps.

Joanna Newton, 38, a keen sportswoman who has also competed as a runner and cyclist, was on an adventure holiday with friends, was swept 4,000ft down a mountain in a torrent of rocks and ice.

After she was rescued she was found to have frostbite in her toes and her left foot was amputated. Yesterday, doctors had to remove her left leg below the knee and told her she that could lose more.

Ms Newton’s mother, Helena, said that her daughter had gone on a climbing trip with three friends at the beginning of the month.

Although good weather had been predicted, she and Steve Jeffs, a fellow climber, had been caught in a sudden snowstorm which forced them to take cover. The conditions meant that the pair had to stay in their makeshift shelter for 2½ days, eating snow to survive. Then Ms Newton, a chemical engineer from Guisborough, North Yorkshire, was caught in the avalanche. She managed to dig herself out while Mr Jeffs abseiled down the slope to her.

Mrs Newton said: “She is an experienced climber and doesn’t take risks. She and Steve decided to climb one last peak but their friends decided to stay behind before flying home the next day.

“The forecast was perfect weather so they went up. Then there was this freak snowstorm — snow in August is always going to be a freak occurence.”

She said that when her daughter was caught in the avalanche, “her left leg was smashed up below the knee, but Steve rigged up a sling to support her leg”.

Their friends had raised the alarm when the pair failed to return to camp and a search team was sent to find them.

They were eventually picked up by a helicopter and taken to Insel Hospital, Bern, where Ms Newton’s frostbitten toes were removed and her leg plated and pinned. But doctors told her that she would have to lose her leg. Her partner, Richard Waterman, who could not go on the trip because of work commitments, has flown out to be with Ms Newton.

Mrs Newton said that her daughter had had five operations so far and faces more. She admitted that she always feared that Jo would be injured while climbing, but said that she lived for the sport.

“Active sport has been Jo’s whole life ever since she was at school,” she said. “She took up climbing when she was at university and has climbed every mountainous area in the world. She was also a competitive cyclist and runner and was a skilled horsewoman.”

Mrs Newton said that her daughter was strong enough to cope with what had happened.

“It’s difficult for us to imagine the Jo we know being disabled, but we are just grateful that she is alive,” she said. “She is a very strong person and we know she will be able to make the necessary adjustment to a completely different lifestyle.

“It’s a relief to me personally that her climbing days are over as it is always a source of great anxiety to her family.”

Ms Newton is due to return home at the beginning of next month, when she will most likely be transferred to a hospital in Newcastle upon Tyne.

Nick Spokes, her brother, a librarian, said: “We are all very worried about her. It’s a very trying time just waiting for her to get home.

“She is taking it in the best way she can. She is coping remarkably. She is tough — we are a tough family.”

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