"Heroic Rescue: Nine Brits and Babies in Strollers Saved by Helicopters After Wandering Just Inches from a Cliff Edge in the Alps"

NINE Brits – including babies in prams – were dramatically airlifted from a mountainside in the Alps after getting lost on a treacherous hiking trail.

Mountain rescue teams were scrambled after the group strayed onto a precarious route close to a sheer cliff edge.

Alpine crews were called at around 5.15pm on Sunday after reports that up to 15 people had gotten lost.

They had been hiking down from the Wildspitz chairlift mountain station in Sölden, , intending to make their way back to the nearby Ötztal valley.

But the group took a wrong turn and quickly found themselves in danger.

Minutes later, another distress call came in reporting that more people were lost in the area, including an injured amateur hiker.

Multiple helicopters were scrambled to search the mountainside, where rescuers eventually found 36 people wandering through the wilderness.

The group was made up of three separate families – including 17 Belgians, nine Brits, seven Austrians and three Americans.

Among them were two babies in prams, with their parents pushing them along a path described by rescuers as “completely unsuitable for strollers”.

Rescue operation boss Jakob Fiegl told Kronen Zeitung that some members of the group “were barely half a meter from the abyss and could hardly keep their feet standing”.

“There was even a stroller in the area where falls were imminent,” he added.

The group was found at an elevation of around 7,500ft, but had become scattered across the mountainside by the time the helicopters arrived.

“In some cases, they were separated by as much as 200 metres in altitude,” Fiegl said.

Helicopters initially carried 14 people to safety, with several needing to be winched aboard by rope.

Rescuer Stephan Kuen said he had to carry out a dramatic rescue of two boys trapped in a steep gully.

“I built a belay station and then secured one of the boys, who was dangerously close to a rock slab,” he said.

“Then I rappelled us down to the boy’s brother, from where we were airlifted out.”

The boys’ father watched the high-stakes rescue from higher up the mountain, where he was with other family members.

They were all subsequently airlifted to safety.

Meanwhile, rescuers escorted the remaining 22 people down the mountain on foot or in emergency road vehicles.

Fiegl said the operation had been extremely perilous and could easily have ended in tragedy.

“This story could have ended very differently; their rescue was touch and go,” he said.