Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Outdoors blog

Video captures near disastrous avalanche accident at Crystal Mountain

AVALANCHE -- A woman who was buried by an avalanche at Crystal Mountain on Wednesday was rescued by a group of skiers, one of whom had a helmet cam on during the entire event.

She was wearing no avalanche beacon to help her rescuers with the search, according to news reports, but that's not confirmed here.

This chilling video shows how very, very close she came to dying in a tomb of snow and how her well trained and equipped rescuers kept calm, focused and did the job.

There's no gore here, but a lot to see, hear and absorb if you're a backcountry skier, snowshoer or snowmobiler.

The avalanche happened at minute 4:30 in the video. The rescuers found her and were yelling to give her a breath at 12 minutes -- more than 7 minutes after she was buried!

After a visit to a hospital, she was OK.

Unbelievable.



Rich Landers
Rich Landers joined The Spokesman-Review in 1977. He is the Outdoors editor for the Sports Department writing and photographing stories about hiking, hunting, fishing, boating, conservation, nature and wildlife and related topics.

Follow Rich online:




Go to the full Outdoors page