This incredible video — taken from of a skier’s point-of-view camera as he goes through an avalanche and subsequent rescue — is doing the rounds of the internet just now. More from The Guardian:
The video captures a 1,500-foot fall in little over 20 seconds. The camera goes crazy, flickering from blue to white to black and then settles back to a blue. That is all the viewer sees for the next four minutes or so, but the sound of heavy breathing with the occasional whimper is clearly audible as the skier lies buried under snow.
Chappy, who posted the video of the skier on the site, writes: “In the time that he’s buried, you can hear his breathing already accelerate. The ruffling noise back and forth is his chest rising and falling and the noise that his jacket makes. The intermittent whimpering noise you hear is him trying to swallow and get some air since the avalung [a breathing device which is used to prolong the supply of oxygen for avalanche victims by recycling air] wasn’t fully in his mouth and instead just to the corner of his mouth.”
Remarkably the skier survived and didn’t even break a bone. Huzzah!
Avalanche Skier POV Helmet Cam Burial & Rescue in Haines, Alaska
Man, held my breath through most of that, nuts!