“Miraculous Escape: Nelson Man Survives Avalanche in Southern Alberta’s Backcountry Thanks to Unbelievable Luck”
A Nelson man survived an avalanche in the backcountry near a ski resort in Alberta after calling for help in an area that normally has no cell phone coverage.
Castle Mountain Resort in southern Alberta near the BC border was notified by a 911 call around 3:40 p.m. Friday afternoon that a skier had called for help in an area known to be out of bounds at the back of the resort is applicable. The incident was first reported by CBC and confirmed by the Nelson Star on Monday.
Cole Fawcett, the resort’s director of sales and marketing, said the unidentified 38-year-old man was skiing alone in an area Fawcett said is reserved for experienced skiers only. The Castle Mountain entrance area doesn’t have cell service, but Fawcett said there is sometimes cell service on clear days at high altitudes.
The avalanche survivor, Fawcett said, had no beacon and was lucky to have signal.
“Really, really happy he was able to put this call through. That was huge.”
Two resort employees, Amanda Goodhue and Madeline Martin, who also volunteer with Southwest Alberta’s regional search and rescue team, hiked to the skier’s location and reached him around 8 p.m
Fawcett said the man’s injuries, as well as the steep incline, led Goodhue and Martin to conclude the trio would spend the night sheltered on the mountain. They were attended to by other search and rescue personnel at 1am and then all three were lifted from the air by helicopter around 9am the next morning.
Fawcett and the RCMP, Corp. media officer Troy Savinkoff, said the man sustained non-life-threatening injuries to his neck and leg. Fawcett said the man has since been discharged from a hospital in Lethbridge.
“This is definitely one of the better, if not the best, scenarios. The really big luck here was his ability to get a phone call. He was in a situation where he was skiing alone. If he hadn’t been able to get that emergency call through, we wouldn’t have had any reports of missing or injured. It was that call from 911 that alerted us to his situation and whereabouts.”
Several avalanche deaths have occurred in eastern British Columbia this year.
On January 9, two Nelson Police Department officers, Det. Wade Tittemore and Const. Mathieu Nolet died as a result of an avalanche during a ski tour north of Kaslo.
A man who was snowmobiling near Valemount, north of Revelstoke, died on January 21, and two days later two American tourists were killed in another avalanche near Revelstoke.
Fawcett said there’s less ski touring culture in the Castle Mountain Resort area.
“There’s ski touring down here, people do it, no question,” Fawcett said. “But it has traveled much less far. It’s quite rare that we hear of a significant number of incidents.”
@tyler_harper | [email protected]
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