Avalanche Survivor Recalls Experience of Being Buried Alive
A Reno, NV man is lucky to be alive after getting trapped in a sudden avalanche while skiing earlier this week. But it was his quick thinking in the moment as well as crucial efforts from rescuers that ultimately saved his life.
Jason Parker, 52, and his fiancée had taken a day trip to the Palisades Tahoe ski resort in Olympic Valley, CA on Wednesday, undeterred by low visibility and strong winds. "It was open, and we took advantage of it," said Parker, who has 35 years of experience as a skier and snowboarder.
The pair were skiing down the mountain with Parker in the lead when he said eventually he felt "some "slough come by me," which he felt was "nothing to worry about," despite avalanche warnings in the area. However, about five seconds later, the avalanche hit him. "It swept me off my feet, threw me onto my back," he later told NBC News.
Initially the avalanche was slow-moving, with Parker describing the experience as being in a river with the water "pulling you down." Through his years of training he had been taught to try to stay above the avalanche, but then it suddenly accelerated as he approached a gulley. He made sure to yell to other nearby skiers so they would be aware of his location, but as the wall of snow began to slow down, he soon found himself trapped.
"That’s when it just covered me up and there was nothing I could do," Parker recalled of the terrifying ordeal. "It was just, like, entombed me."
In a "split-second decision," he made sure to punch a 6-inch air hole in front of his face so he could breathe and yell for help. But because he was lying flat under a "tub of concrete" of about four feet of snow, he couldn't move his body or hear anyone around him. Parker knew his only recourse at that point was to calm down and slow his breathing to avoid losing oxygen.
"You're helpless," he said. "Your only hope is for somebody to find you."
Parker knew that he only had about 15 minutes before it would be too late, and after he began to feel sleepy and started to black out, believed "this is the way I'm going to go." In accepting his apparent fate, he said that he felt a "calmness" rush over him.
But after about seven to nine minutes of drifting in and out of consciousness, he finally felt a probe hit his back. "Hey, we've got him," he heard someone say, before rescuers dug his head out of the snow so he could breathe. He recalled hugging one of the crew when he was finally freed from his icy tomb.
Rescuers dug Parker's head out of the snow, and he was able to breathe again. When he was finally freed, he remembers hugging one of them. "Once that probe hit me, I knew I was going to be OK," he said. "And that was, that was incredible. It’s a feeling I’ll never forget."
With only a slightly injured knee, Parker was even able to snowboard back down to base camp. However, at wasn't until he got home that he learned that a 66-year-old had been killed in the avalanche.
"It weighed on me all last night. I barely got any sleep," he explained. "Going back and forth about how lucky I was and how he wasn’t. It's basically just a miracle ... to not hit anything on the way down in ... an area that has trees, cliffs, not hurt myself too bad and then get buried."
According to FEMA, an average of 28 people die in avalanches in the U.S. every winter. But before you hit the slopes, stocking up on essential avalanche gear and having an understanding of survival preparedness can drastically improve your odds.