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Rescue Stories?

1K views 5 replies 4 participants last post by  Dano 
#1 ·
Anyone have any good rescue stories that have happened to yourself or to others?

Last season I dug out some guy who was headfirst stuck in the snow up to his waist. We had gotten a lot of wet snow and one of the chairs wasn't running, so when they opened it back up everyone was riding over deep, heavy and slightly compacted snow: basically the last thing you want to have a bad fall into because your not getting back out of it. At first I didn't even see the guy, just these two dumbass skiers who were staring at him.

Once I realized it after I had gone slightly past him, I had to click out of my bindings and commando crawl up the hill to him since you would just sink the snow. I started digging him out and I think at that point the skiers realized he was probably going to blackout and start suffocating so they started helping me. Thankfully he must not have been there too long because he was still conscious, though gasping for air and not all there. Couple minutes later he rode off, no ski patrol necessary. Pretty cool to be a part of saving someone's life, you can see the rush people like fireman get from doing stuff like that.
 
#2 ·
I was a lifeguard at boulder beach so I was forced to save people. That and call in code browns almost daily... specfically in the kiddy area. But cool beans on saving someone, not sure what the skie'rs were doing, perhaps they like the sight of a slow torturous death, Buffalo bill anyone?.
 
#3 ·
I have a bad one. I don't think I'll go into details here. It freaked me out for a week but I'm okay with it now. Just kinda makes you more aware of what can happen and sometimes there's nothing you can do to prevent it.

I did hear about one story season before last. A Winter Park lift mechanic was skiing over at Loveland on his day off. He stopped at one point and noticed something red colored in the snow. He moved the snow and found an immobile Loveland Ski Patroller buried in the snow. He used the patrollers radio to call Loveland Patrol. The patroller was in bad shape. I found out the end of this past season that the patroller made it but is now paralyzed. They had a fund raiser for him at the end of the season.
 
#4 ·
Wow that would suck, not too many worse things then getting paralyzed. Last year a kid also died on the mountain, at first they had thought the aforementioned story of getting stuck and suffocating had happened to him, but later they found he had heart problems and had a heart attack. People tried to help him but there wasn't a whole lot they could do to stop a heart attack.
 
#5 · (Edited)
Last year a kid also died on the mountain, at first they had thought the aforementioned story of getting stuck and suffocating had happened to him, but later they found he had heart problems and had a heart attack. People tried to help him but there wasn't a whole lot they could do to stop a heart attack.
Yeah, that's what happened to the guy I found. Numerous emergency room personnel have told me since that's it's extremely hard to save these types. Most don't make it. It was a hard incident report to write up. It made me appreciate what ski patrol has to face daily.
 
#6 · (Edited)
Still need to try when dealing with a Cardiac Arrest. Quickly administered CPR will greatly increase the chances of success once ski patrol starts running their AED. Yes, chances of recovery are still fairly low when compaired to TV or movies, but even with the worst case outcome at least CPR will keep organs and tissues oxygenated (alive) for someone else to benefit via transplants. It also helps friends and family members of the victim mentally when they see people trying everything they can.

I hear ya though, losing one sucks. It's a horrible feeling
 
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