17 hours under an avalanche
Thursday February 11, 2010 - Email this article to a friend

The 21-year old man was hit by an avalanche while skiing off piste on his own in Evolene last Saturday.

He ended up under the snow in a large air pocket and so, though he could not free himself from under the weight of snow, he was able to breathe.

His family alerted the rescue services after he failed to return home that evening.

The rescue services found ski tracks near a large avalanche but had to call off the search at 01.30am on Sunday morning as conditions became too dangerous for the rescuers.

According to police sources the avalanche was 150m long and 50m wide. 

The search was begun again at first light on Sunday using a helicopter and a team on the ground.  A person in the helicopter saw some snow moving and called in people on the ground to go to the position.

The man was found buired under 50cm of snow; he was suffering from light hypothermia but he was otherwise uninjured.

He was airlifted to hospital for treatement.

Speaking to World Swiss Radio from his hospital bed the man said he was conscious through all of it and very cold through the night.

The Valais Police say he was able to survive because he was in an air pocket and also some air was able to get to him from the surface.  They have described his survival as "exceptional."

Normally people have around 45 minutes to get found before they suffocate. After that it is usually a question of finding a body.

The recue team consisted of the ski patrol, the Municipal Police of Evolene, Cantonal Police and volunteers.

It follows a large number of avalanche fatalities across the Alps in recent days as we have reported here on PlanetSKI.

People are being asked to exercise extreme caution at the moment though of course the fresh snow does mean that conditions are good in many parts of the Alps as we report in the PlanetSKI snow overview.

Recently we brought you a report on the little-known ski area of Evolene from PlanetSKI reporter, Tony Hilliard. See here for further details.

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