SNOQUALMIE PASS, Wash. — A dramatic rescue was caught on camera this week at the Summit at Snoqualmie. A skier rescued a man as he suffocated under feet of fresh Cascades snow.
The fresh snow that fell this week brought a slew of skiers to the mountains. Some viewed the fresh powder as a savior for an otherwise abysmal ski season, but it nearly turned deadly for one skier.
“This guy okay?” Ian Deans, a professional skier, asked at the beginning of a two-and-a-half minute video he recorded on the slopes.
Deans was making a promotional video with the ski resort, meant to show off the fresh snow. Instead, he captured a life-or-death moment.
As he headed down the mountain, his camera recorded a pair of skis sticking out of the snow, with their owner buried underneath.
“It was so deep,” Deans told KIRO 7. “Walking around, you were up to your waist, if not more.”
Deans dove in, immediately trying to pull the man back to the surface. When that didn’t work, he started digging.
“I was asking him repeatedly, ‘Are you okay, are you okay?’” Deans said.
Deans eventually dug up the man’s face and cleared the snow out of his airway. The man was heard gasping for breath.
“It was a moment of panic, two feet away from 40 other people going by, with no idea that it happened,” he said.
Deans told KIRO 7 the situation just goes to show that avalanches and tree wells aren’t the only dangers on the slopes. The incident happened in-bounds, simply because the skier fell the wrong way in snow that was too deep.
“Are you okay though?” Deans asked the skier after digging him out.
“I’m okay,” the skier said. “I’m just damn glad you guys were there.”
Deans wants people to be aware of what could happen with all the fresh snow and the crowds headed out to enjoy it.
“I don’t want this to scare people from going skiing or snowboarding,” he said. “I want this to just be a reminder that you are stepping outside your house and once you do that you are at risk.”
What happened to the skier is called fresh snow immersion. To avoid it, Deans recommends skiing with a partner and covering your face when you fall to create an air bubble.