The key facts

  • The mother left children aged 8 and 14 on the trail above Muchne, telling them to wait 15 minutes, and was gone longer
  • The summit was about an hour's walk away; there was thick fog on the trail
  • PTTK criticized the woman for her lack of a sense of guilt; the incident was reported to the authorities

Incident on a trail in the Bieszczady Mountains

On Saturday, a woman left her two sons — aged eight and fourteen — alone on a hiking trail in the Bieszczady Mountains in southern Poland because they were 'whining', and went to the summit alone. This was reported by the Rzeszów branch of the Polish Tourist and Sightseeing Society (PTTK) on Facebook.

Witnesses — tourists from PTTK

A group from the PTTK branch in Rzeszów was walking along a route near the point where the blue and yellow trails diverge above Muchne. According to their description, they heard piercing crying and a child's scream: at the trail stood bewildered boys — a crying eight-year-old and his fourteen-year-old brother. According to PTTK, the mother told the children that if they were whining and did not want to walk, they should wait fifteen minutes. The boys waited considerably longer. From that point, about an hour of walking remained to the summit.

Conditions and the woman's reaction

Conditions on the trail were poor: thick fog had descended over the area. The shocked tourists took care of the children. After about a quarter of an hour, according to PTTK's description, a stout-looking woman appeared; the younger son took her hand and stopped crying. When she was pointed out how one could leave underage children alone in high mountains in such weather conditions, she, according to PTTK's account, coldly replied that she had been gone only a moment, that she wanted to climb higher, and that the children 'made her' give up her planned goal.

Criticism and consequences

PTTK criticized the woman for her lack of a 'sense of guilt': according to the author of the post, an apology came only after a mention of possible charges from the prosecutor's office, and the response that one should apologize not to him but to the children received no reaction. The incident was reported to local authorities and caused widespread public outrage in Poland over issues of parental responsibility and safety on mountain trails.