Avalanche Training and Tools can Prevent Tragedy

Beacons can save lives

Tools

By Kate McPherson
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Story Created: Feb 21, 2012 at 10:22 AM AKDT

Story Updated: Feb 21, 2012 at 10:22 AM AKDT

ANCHORAGE - Alaska's backcountry can be unforgiving, if you aren't prepared.

Nick D'Alessio from the Alaska Avalanche School says carrying a beacon into avalanche terrain could make the difference of being pulled out alive or suffocating.

That’s if you survive the initial trauma.

“There's not a lot of time if someone actually gets buried. Our goal is to find someone within 10 minutes or less; at 15 minutes you have a 15 percent chance and then it just drops significantly,” says D’Alessio.

Learning the proper technique of locating trapped victims with a beacon takes time and skill: time that more and more people in Alaska are willing to put in.

The Alaska Avalanche School offers numerous courses at different levels for people wanting to be more prepared before they venture out into the mountains.

D’Alessio says a beacon in good working condition is accurate to within half a meter and has a range of up to 60 meters.

Using a locating beacon is only part of the rescue. Once a victim is located with the beacon, a probe is stuck through the snow to get an exact hit.

“It takes a little bit of experience to figure out what's a body part and what's a branch” says D’Allesio.

"It feels like searching for a needle in a haystack...you stick your probe in there thinking you're going to hit it and you're missing it," says Alison Rein, one of D’Alessio’s students taking a course at Turnagain Pass.

When the probe makes contact with the avalanche victim, the shoveling begins. And with potentially tons of snow to remove, it’s not an easy job.

The rescue class at Turnagain Pass completes a number of different avalanche scenarios.

"People that are buried say the scariest part of everything is when they can hear the people above them beeping and they collapse their airway they've got and it just crushes them" says D’Allesio.

"It's one thing having all the gear but you have to known how to use it at a time when it could be pretty stressful,” says Ben Crawford, another of D’Allesio’s students.

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cooljulie said on Wednesday, Feb 29 at 10:30 PM

No mention of dogs! Dogs can be trained to find avalanche victims in far less time than it takes humans. Of course, the dog has to be nearby when the avalanche occurs.... "Probes usually take too long to strike a telltale soft lump that could be a body. The dog sometimes can find a person in seconds. Human noses have about 5 million scent receptors. Dog noses have about 250 million and a correspondingly larger portion of the brain devoted to processing scents. A good avalanche dog can smell someone under 30 feet of snow. Studies suggest a trained dog can find a body 160 times faster than a human searcher."

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Brendan Joel Kelley said on Tuesday, Feb 21 at 3:39 PM

Thanks for the extra info, Nick! - BJK@ktva.com

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Nick D'Alessio said on Tuesday, Feb 21 at 1:55 PM

Correction on burial time and survival probability: at 15 minutes you have a 93% chance of survival, but that is not including trauma. After 15 minutes your chances drop significantly.

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