Avalanche victim rescued after being buried for more than an hour on Colorado mountain

A man was rescued after an avalanche buried him on the slopes of Vail Pass in central Colorado on Monday afternoon.He and another man had been out snowmobiling on Shrine Mountain west of Vail Pass when they set off the avalanche, according to the Summit County Rescue Group (SCRG).As one man became buried, the other tried to locate him by using his avalanche rescue transceiver, officials with the Colorado Avalanche Information Center (CAIC) said.When he did not receive a signal, the unburied man then called 9-1-1 for help.Personnel and dog teams with the Summit County Rescue Group, along with two deputies with the Summit County Sheriff’s Office, responded to the scene.The rescue was recorded on the bodycam of one of the deputies, showing rescue personnel using shovels to dig the man out of the snow.“Approximately 2 feet down, two feet under the snow, we’ve just uncovered him,” one deputy can be heard saying off camera.“He is breathing, conscious and is speaking to us.”SCRG officials said the man was buried for about 65 minutes. His survival after being buried for that long is nothing short of extraordinary, as most people buried by avalanches usually suffocate and die within 15 minutes, according to Michael Schilling with the Summit County Sheriff’s Office. “It’s extremely amazing,” he said to FOX Weather.

“We go to those rescues, and oftentimes, they’re recoveries.So to find someone after an hour and five minutes of burial is extraordinarily rare.”The buried man was moved off the field by snowmobile and a gurney on skis, and then transported by ambulance to a local hospital.

SCRG said he suffered mainly from the early stages of hypothermia.The avalanche comes after a series of intense winter storms brought heavy snowfall to the area.SCRG said the avalanche danger the day of the incident was rated by the CAIC as “high,” or 4 out of 5.“Backcountry users need to be aware that an avalanche burial will generally result in a f...