Lucky escape
Thursday January 21, 2010 - Email this article to a friend

He was climbing up the face on the ridge to the west when he lost his footing at the top of a couloir and fell all the way down.

He was treated at the scene and then airlifted to a local hospital.

He suffered severe injures but they are not thought to be life threatening.

A person on the nearby Jumbo cable car has said it was an horrific fall. "The guy really fell hard and badly. The slope where he stopped was really steep and the chopper had a hell of a job getting to collect the guy, but eventually managed to maneuver in," he said.

It is one of Verbier's more extreme off piste descents, though there are various ways down it ranging from the difficult to the seriously extreme.

The climb up takes about 50 minutes.

It is the setting for the Verbier leg of the Freeride World Tour.

See below for a video of last year's event and a look at the site of the accident.  The couloir the man fell down is on the left of the face.

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