Skier missing after falling through a snow bridge in Mount Rainier National Park

MOUNT RAINIER NATIONAL PARK, Wash. — If anyone could survive an accidental plunge though a Mount Rainier snow bridge into an icy rushing creek, friends and family of 30-year-old Dmitri Pajitnov say he could do it.

They reached out to KIRO-7 after Pajitnov, a medical student mountaineer and expert ski patrol fell through five feet of fresh snow into Pebble creek on Monday afternoon while he and an expert partner were skiing from Camp Muir to Paradise.

The partner saw Pajitnov fall though, and he searched for two hours using an avalanche probe and transceiver before skiing down to get help.

After searching the next day by air, search crews found no sign of Pajitnov anywhere, and they found the area far too dangerous and unstable to put rescuers at risk on the snow bridge.

Dmitri's friends responded by putting together a GoFundMe account, which raised nearly 16 thousand dollars in one day. They're hoping to hire their own pilots, and their own rescue team, to search for Dmitri.

The family passed along a change.org petition, which got the attention of lawmakers. Mount Rainier's staff called Dmitri's family and explained his chances of survival are so slim, it would not be worth the risk to rescue workers who could fall through themselves.

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