Reader’s Digest
78 august 2019
I
t was dark beneath the snow,
which was cold and solid, like
concrete. Brock Crouch could
feel his arms but he couldn’t
move them. They had been
useless to him during his fall, and now
they were locked in place, one by his
side and the other twisted somewhere
behind his back.
He was trapped, badly injured
and in a state of shock that left him
numb to the sting from the snow
pressing against him. Crouch’s back
was broken, as were six of his teeth
and his helmet—which had cracked
against a rock, leaving him concussed.
He was woozy, but alert enough to
understand he was in mortal danger.
Moments earlier, Crouch had
free-fallen like a rag doll over a cliff,
bouncing and flipping uncontrollably
300 metres down one of the unnamed
peaks of the Pemberton Ice Cap in
British Columbia [in Canada]. His
board was still attached to his feet,
which were the only body parts
now protruding from the snow. He
was upside down, and his head,
completely submerged, was wedged
between his knees—a painful position
to be in, except he hadn’t felt anything
since hearing the crunch of his
vertebrae against a rock.
There was no way to push or pull
his head the half-metre required to get
it above the snow, no way to clear his
own airway. He couldn’t even spit the
broken teeth from his mouth. He was
18 years old, too young to accept thatthis was how he was going to die. But
there was no fighting it, either.
He closed his eyes and slipped into
the darkness. It was silent, almost
peaceful. He didn’t hear his friends’
frantic screams coming out of his radio,
which was located somewhere on his
body, but smothered by snow. Nor did
he register the sound of a chopper’s
blades cutting through the sky above
him while he slowly suffocated in the
debris of his own mistake.
Then he blacked out.
Five minutes earlier, Crouch had
been standing at the jagged top of
the mountain’s ridge, looking for
his next line of descent through the
fresh powder. It was 2:15 p.m. on
22 April 2018—a little late in the
season to be heli-skiing on this range,
which stretches north of Whistler.
The air was warm—10°C—and the
sun dangerous in the sky above, its
rays weakening the snow’s grip on
the mountainside.
The odds of an avalanche increased
with every passing moment the sun
bore down. It was a risk Crouch and
the six others in his party considered
while deciding which slopes to shred
and which to avoid. They’d flown to
this particular corner of the Coast
Mountains in search of a pristine
backdrop for a snowboard film—the
type that attracts an audience enthused
by death-defying vertical drops.
Crouch was the main talent on the
mountain that day, one of the chosen
stars of Absinthe Films’ latest movie.