Skier recovered alive after 40 minute burial in avalanche

[summit]

Perhaps his upper body ended up in a small air pocket between some hard slab blocks or something. WOW!!!

I was giving an additional possible reason for the time, but it sounds like you speculated an answer to your own question

You forget the effects chilling has on the body, and the decrease metabolism that occurs. It is almost like a hibernation. Same effect as drowning victims in ice cold lakes. There have been some amazing survival times, because the body basically shuts down.

This is a very debatable point. I think most would argue that it is not like a cold water drowning. There isn't the rapid cooling you see in water. It isn't cold water; they either have an airspace or they don't. As for "hibernation" perhaps you are referring to the mammalian dive reflex. I am not aware of any research suggesting that it has a prominent effect in avalanche burials (especially as children are rare victims).

The Europeans seem to think that stage IV hypothermia can develop in avalanche victims with an airspace as early as 30 minutes into the burial. However, American doctors contest this idea since the Europeans have only three or four case studies, not all of them from avalanches, to base their theory on. American doctors tend to believe that you probably aren't going to see stage IV hypothermia before 120 minutes and certainly not before 90 minutes. I agreed with IKARs "triple-H syndrome" theory until I heard the American position and researched it further. I tend to agree with the American theory here.

There have been some amazing survival times because people have a large enough airspace to allow exchange with the local pack for that time or in extreme survival times because their airspace has a connection with the surface.

I would argue based on the current research that while hypothermia doesn't kill many avalanche victims in the snow, it probably doesn't save many if any either.

[Lev]

Someone tried telling me that the same thing happened at the Canyons earlier this year during the inbounds slide. Anyone know anything about that? I'm specifically referring to the 11 year old who was partially buried and then rescued. An older individual was killed in the slide and the kid survived after being buried for like 40 min. I know it was posted up here a while ago, but I don't know any additional info off hand.

[hutash]

^^^I was told second hand that the boy who got buried had been to a school avi awareness presentation, and remember it was important to make an airspace with his hand as the slide came to a stop. If true, then props to the Utah avi center for their school out reach program.

Good info. Summit, I just threw out some conjecture from what I have heard, and have no basis but some first hand accounts. It sounds like you are up on the latest info, thanks for posting.

[TBski]

We built a sweet jump and skied some great 300ft runs yesterday in seattle creek. woo hoo

what do you guys think about maybe the fat pockets and slopes that have already slid being a tad safer? I'm thinking if you can still see a crown it must have ripped a lot of that stuff out, how much does it take to clean out a bad buried surface hoar or facet layer? I wasn't finding that faceted layer on a south facing 3K' 40deg lee slope that you could still see a faint crown on.

Some yes, some no. Had my partner take a 1000ft ride a few years ago in Fresno creek drainage partly from using that logic.Sometimes a big slide will take the weak layer with it other times it will stick around. The buried surface hoar that remains can end up acting a little like an ice layer,so it can reload and reslide. Plus remember there's more than one buried surface hoar layer. The crown you were looking at may have just released the top layer because of wind load but the deeper layer may still be waiting for the right trigger.
This snowpack is very different from our normal, so using the regular risk vs reward that has worked in years past may not be accurate .It is great snow though, which makes it even harder.

[Camilo]

This guy is an instructor at a school my little brother went to, as well as a really good friend of a friend. I'll look him up in a few days and see if he can post a first-hand account.