British doctor falls 80 feet to his death on Spanish climb
A British doctor has died after plunging more than 80 feet down a gorge while climbing in Spain.
Dr Ian Burnell, who was trekking with friends, was attempting to scale a cliff face when he fell. His friends called emergency services but the 25-year-old, who had recently graduated as a doctor, is thought to have died on the way to hospital. He suffered multiple injuries.
The Spanish Civil Guard are investigating the fall, which occurred as the group attempted to reach the top of the Altea Urbanisation Hills, near Benidorm.
Humanitarian work: Dr Ian Burnell, centre, kept a blog of his time helping at a prison hospital in Rwanda. He detailed the extreme poverty and fragility of life
Originally from Reading, Dr Burnell attended Cardiff University where he was a member of the caving club. He had recently started work at the city's University of Wales Hospital. Two years ago he went to Rwanda where he carried out humanitarian work at a prison hospital.
While there he wrote a blog called "Perplexed, but not in despair", which told of working in extreme poverty with limited tools and medicines.
In his entry on 14 September 2005 he wrote: "It was such a sharp reminder of the fragility of human life and the inequality between the rich and the poor."
In another entry he wrote: "Life here is a mixture of fun, laughter, randomness, tears, anger, frustration, joy and sadness. Life is very fragile in this country."
Over the weekend, tributes to Dr Burnell flooded into the networking website Facebook, where a page has been set up his memory. School friends, housemates and colleagues all told of a kind-hearted, fun-loving young man who loved practical jokes.
One friend, Lydia Whittaker, wrote: "I have wonderful memories of an amazing, generous, kind, loving man. His life did indeed touch me too, and I will miss him. Thank you God for lettingus know him for a little while."
Others tell stories of how he hid in his chemistry teacher's desk for an entire lesson and of how he sent an email round at university pretending to be a lecturer.
Dr Burnell's younger sister Lucy said: "On behalf of my family can I thank everyone for their kind comments, they are such a blessing for us all to read and our parents are incredibly touched."
A committed Christian, Dr Burnell's funeral will be at Greyfriars Church in Reading on 30 May at 1pm.
