was still standing in shock. Soon they
were all together, calculating the risks
associated with their own descents.
Poole was coming in fast but al-
ready feared the worst. He’d been on
the scene of Korthals’ death just weeks
earlier, hovering overhead as rescuers
struggled to locate her remains in the
avalanche that had buried her. The
odds were grim: only 47 per cent of
avalanche victims survive. And 90 per
cent of those who lived were dug out
within the first ten minutes. Crouch’s
chances were dwindling fast.
The pilot could see the runout from
the avalanche, but there was no sign
of Crouch. And he could hear Cam-
pos on the radio, asking for eyes on
the mountainside. The boarders des-
perately wanted to help in the search,
but were afraid of hangfire – residual
snowfall that often breaks off in the
minutes after an initial avalanche.
As he eyed the debris, Poole looked
for traces of anything – a glove, gog-
gles, a twisted body. It didn’t take long
before he thought he saw something.
The tip of a snowboard, maybe. He
locked its location in his mind, quick-
ly mapping a route down from the top
for the other snowboarders. He radi-
oed directions to Campos, then spun
the chopper towards the object.
A clock was ticking inside Fitzpat-
rick’s head. Three minutes had passed
since Crouch had fallen out of sight,
if not more. It felt like forever to him
before any of the boarders deemed it
safe to start down the mountain. Each
of them hoped to pick up a pulsed
radio signal from Crouch’s location
transceiver.
Poole spotted a safe spot to land
near the runout and dropped the
helicopter. He killed the engines,
then jumped out of the cockpit with
his shovel, running through the
snow towards the object he’d spotted
from the sky. Brushing its surface
off, he confirmed into the radio that
he’d located Crouch’s board. Poole
started to dig.
The chopper’s blades were still
spinning as Campos and Jackson
joined Poole – the two snowboarders
quickly working at the compacted
snow with the shovels they’d carried
in their packs. It took a minute just
to expose Crouch’s legs, and a few
more to uncover the top of his head.
He’d been folded up like a taco, and
his face was blue by the time they
got it exposed. He wasn’t breathing.
Jackson put his hand in Crouch’s
mouth and cleared his airway of snow
and broken teeth. Besides his head
and feet, his body was still buried.
Blood was coming out of his ears. He
looked to be dead.
Campos readied to revive him.
Then, suddenly, Crouch’s eyes opened
and he began gasping for breath.
“Oh god!” Campos said, shocked.
“He’s alive! He’s alive!”
Crouch had survived for an estimat-
ed seven minutes under the snow. He
looked around but could hardly regis-
ter what had happened.57
Wompf!