A Christmas Day rescue is being hailed as a miracle after a young man survived being buried under snow and ice for about five hours.
Police in Austria were notified on Wednesday that a 26-year-old skier had not returned from the slopes and went to investigate. Another man told police he had managed to call the avalanche victim on his cellphone, but all he heard was “crackling noises,” according to the BBC.
Skiers in the area are required to wear avalanche transceivers, and the rescue team was able to locate the man on a slope of Mount Pleschnitzzinken, in Upper Styria. The skier was located two hours after authorities were notified but had already been buried for about three hours before that.
The rescue team and dogs dug the man out from the three feet of snow that the avalanche had buried him under. He suffered hypothermia but is expected to be fine.
“You can’t move under a blanket of snow like this,” Stefan Schrock of the Styria mountain rescue service said. “The man was extremely lucky he had a big enough air pocket under the blanket of snow, so he had oxygen, too, and was able to breathe.”
According to Schrock, surviving for that long after an avalanche only happens once every five years in the Alps. In most cases, a person needs to be rescued within 15 minutes in order to survive.
Earlier this month, a man in Alaska survived for more than an hour after being buried upside down in an avalanche. His rescue was also described as a miracle.
