A hero skier saved the life of a snowboarder completely buried head-first in a massive snow drift.
Francis Zuber was maneuvering around the tops of trees in deep powder on Mt. Baker, in northwestern Washington state, probably without any indication he might end up in the right place at the right time to be a hero.
It was a one-in-a-million chance that Zuber spotted him at all. He had only just fallen off his own skis in the bumpy ‘tree well’ just a few feet away from a trapped snowboarder.
When he spotted the man’s snowboard wriggling around, just above a large drift, he realized it was still attached to someone below.
From the downhill perspective, a tree was blocking the snowboard from the view of oncoming skiers, and only because Zuber fell into an adjacent drift did he happen to see it.
Francis’s head cam shows him approaching the scene and asking “you alright?”.
But after receiving no response, he hurries over as best he can in the deep snow before removing his skis, pulling himself up the snow mound, and frantically digging with his hands.
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Zuber can be heard reassuring the snowboarder until the man’s reflective visor pokes out of the snow and then his mouth, at which point he takes a big gulp of air.
“Thank you,” the snowboarder says. “Yeah, no problem,” Zuber replied, adding that they were both going to catch their breath.
“All I’ll say for now is the mountains don’t care how much skill or experience you have,” Zuber wrote alongside his own uploaded video. “They don’t even care if you and your ski partners are doing everything right.”
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Zuber recommends every backcountry skier and snowboarder take the ‘Avy 1’ which is an avalanche safety and rescue course.
“Take an Avy 1 course, and get trained on what to do if you find yourself in this situation, and always look out for each other out there,” Zuber said.
WATCH the rescue, but beware of panic-induced swear words and high tension!
SHARE This Incredible Rescue Caught On Video With Your Friends…
Wow. Absolutely saved the guy’s life.
The difficulty the rescuer had moving 2-3 metres upslope to the victim shows how deep the fresh snow was.