‘Very blessed and fortunate’: Utah man saves brother buried in avalanche
A Utah journey to benefit from the snow almost led to tragedy Tuesday when an avalanche struck a snowmobiler on a backcountry hillside — however his youthful brother rushed to his assist and saved him.
“I might see his hand, his gloves, type of poking out, waving,” Braeden Hansen mentioned Wednesday, a day after the avalanche buried Hunter Hansen, his brother, within the Franklin Basin, near the Idaho border.
“However by the point I bought to him, he was about 2 ft, his head was about 2 ft below the snow,” Braeden mentioned.
The avalanche occurred at round 8,400 ft elevation, in line with the Utah Avalanche Middle. The world the place it occurred had a “persistent weak layer,” it mentioned in a discover of the occasion.
The brothers had been having fun with the snow in some meadows in Logan Canyon. They had been climbing as much as a better meadow when the avalanche got here down the hillside.
“I noticed the snow ripple and knew that was an avalanche,” mentioned Braeden, who was forward of his brother.
“I circled to observe the slide hit Hunter and simply watched him type of get tumbled and buried after which overpassed him,” he mentioned.
Braeden activated a beacon that confirmed the place his brother was. He discovered Hunter about 150 yards down from the place he had final seen him.
“I simply cleared the snow away from his head and bought his helmet off in order that he might begin respiration once more, after which simply began digging his physique out from there,” Braeden mentioned.
Hunter had pulled out his telephone to document his brother passing him on the slope, after which one thing caught his eye. It was the avalanche, with the snow breaking up and starting to tumble. It occurred too quick to get out of the way in which, he mentioned.
“It simply washed me down the mountain,” he mentioned. “Probably the most violent factor I’ve ever felt.”
He tumbled, and when the snow compacted, it felt like concrete, he recalled.
“Could not breathe, could not do something,” he mentioned. “I slammed right into a rock or a tree.”
Hunter mentioned he was bruised and goes to get his leg checked out for a doable fracture. He has a spouse and a daughter, and his household has mentioned his survival is a “Christmas miracle,” he mentioned.
The brothers had been linked by a radio, however Hunter was motionless within the snow and will solely pay attention however not reply. He heard their father and his brother speaking about him and trying to find him.
“I discovered him, I discovered him,” came visiting the radio, Hunter recalled.
“There was only a sigh of aid after I felt him begin digging,” he mentioned. He recalled “being on my final breath” and holding it so long as he might earlier than he was rescued.
Hunter credited his brother’s fast considering.
The brothers at all times have beacons, which permit others to search out them, in addition to probes, shovels and airbag units after they go into the backcountry in case of an avalanche, they mentioned.
“It could actually occur at any second and day, and it positive did occur to us,” Braeden Hansen mentioned.
A median of 27 folks die in avalanches in the US yearly, in line with the Colorado Avalanche Info Middle. Utah has the fourth-most recorded avalanche deaths because the winter of 1951 and 1952. Colorado, Alaska and Washington state are the highest three.
“You hear so many tragic tales of individuals getting buried in avalanches and never making it out, so I really feel very blessed and fortunate,” Hunter Hansen mentioned.
