Avalanche victim in Colorado survives after being buried for more than an hour

    SUMMIT COUNTY, Colorado (KCNC) -- Rescuers in a county in Colorado's high country are talking about the amazing survival of a man trapped beneath an avalanche near Vail Pass for over an hour.

"We recovered a live person who's talking," said Summit County Rescue Group mission coordinator Matt Parker about the moment they discovered the man was alive beneath the snow after an estimated 65 minutes. "That's exceptional."

The accident happened Monday in an area called the Shrine Bowl about a mile south of Interstate 70 in the Vail Pass area. Two snowmobilers were in the area together when the slide occurred after weekend snowfall and wind. The avalanche danger was rated as "high" according to the Colorado Avalanche Information Center's director Ethan Greene.

Parker believes they got word about five to seven minutes after the avalanche by the other snowmobiler. The men have not been identified by authorities.

It takes rescuers time to reach avalanche victims and if they have not self-rescued, the odds of finding a victim alive drop. The other snowmobiler could not find the missing man and there was no beacon signal to locate him.

Crews from Summit County as well as Copper Mountain ski resort hustled in to try to reach the man. Searchers found a clue that likely saved a life.

"Occasionally, as was the case here, you will have something sticking up from the snow that either shows us where they are or where they were at one point and can help us kind of build that picture of identifying where they are now," said Parker.

It was a piece of fabric that turned out to be part of the air bag deployed by the rider.

They immediately started digging.

"Typically, we do see kind of an exponential decay in survivability. So about 30 min is where your chances of survival drop below 50%," said Greene. "So at an hour, we certainly have seen people survive longer than that. But it's uncommon for sure."

Avalanche commonly kill in two ways. The first is the trauma of the slide.

"And that can look like a motor vehicle versus a pedestrian-type crash. If you hit a fixed object like a tree or a rock, or something like that," said Parker.

The other way is by asphyxiation. Exhalations beneath the snow can create what's known as an ice mask.

"Even though an avalanche will set up you know pretty hard and tight snow is porous by nature. Without that ice mask, there is a potential for a person to continue breathing," said Parker.

The snowmobiler did not have his airway packed with snow because of what he was wearing.

"A full face helmet, an airbag behind his head. All of that led to the situation where he could survive long enough for rescuers to get to him," said Greene.

"They got the helmet out. The person at that point started talking to them, and once they got the arm uncovered. He was able to move that so we knew, we had a viable patient," said Parker.

The man said he had gone to sleep -- possibly lost consciousness. But soon he was conversing.

Rescuers took him to hospital. He was very cold, but doing well and was soon released.

His survival has generated a lot of conversation among rescuers who remain amazed.

"It was exceptional work and it doesn't always work out this way," said Parker.