Monday 8th February 2010
Swiss police today hailed as "extraordinary" the survival of a young skier who was buried by an avalanche for 17 hours and pulled from the snow with only mild hypothermia.
The 21-year-old man was swept away by a 50-metre wide snowslide while skiing off-piste in the Evolène region of the Alps yesterday.
But, despite the slim survival chances of anyone trapped by an avalanche for more than an hour, an air pocket enabled the man to keep breathing while buried beneath 50cm (20in) of snow, police said.
"It's extraordinary. We occasionally have people surviving after [being buried for] several hours, but after that is pretty much unheard of," said a police spokesman in the southern canton of Valais.
When the Swiss skier was rushed to hospital in Valais, his body temperature was still around 34C, only three degrees below normal, and he was suffering only mild symptoms of hypothermia.
"It is just as surprising that he was not in a much more critical condition," the spokesman added.
The man, an experienced off-piste skier, was reported missing by his family at 4.30pm. Rescuers involved in initial attempts to find him reported seeing the tracks of a skier disappearing into the path of a 50m-wide, 150m-long avalanche.
The search had to be abandoned in the early hours of this morning due to concerns for rescuers' safety. At dawn the search began again and rescuers spotted an area of snow that was moving and appeared to be a different shade from the surrounding white. "It was his helmet that could be seen from the helicopter," said the police spokesman.
The majority of avalanche deaths, of which there are dozens each year in the Alps, occur when the person trapped is suffocated by the snow on top of them. Research has shown chances of survival dip sharply after 35 minutes and are almost zero after two hours beneath the snow.
Though incapable of moving, the skier had been able to carry on breathing due to the pocket of air which formed in front of his face and brought him a weak oxygen supply from the surface.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media 2010
