UPDATE: Everyone accounted for after Saturday’s deadly avalanche
Posted March 20, 2010 10:53 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
REVELSTOKE (NEWS1130) – The search for any more victims from yesterday’s avalanche near Revelstoke has ended as everyone has been accounted for. The avalanche — second in a week — occurred at Eagle Pass killing a 30-year-old man from Alberta and injuring another.
Revelstoke Mayor David Raven says besides warnings — there’s not much else the city or province can do to prevent people from going into the backcountry. “Really it comes down to their own common sense. It’s not as simple as prohibiting everybody going into the backcountry, that would probably not work, it would be very difficult to do and unenforceable.” The investigation has confirmed that there were two groups of snowmobilers in the area at the time that the slide occurred.
Like in last week’s deadly slide, the snowmobilers were ascending the hill in what’s known as highmarking – and triggered the avalanche. Police say there were over 60 people on the mountain at the time.
Tim Jones with North Shore Rescue says helicopters play a key role for rescuers especially in the rugged terrain near Revelstoke. Jones adds many things affect the rate of survival after an avalanche and time is critical in these situations. “Statistics say that after 30 minutes it’s pretty dismal, but there are so many factors that go into survival that we have seen. We always go into rescue mode and at a certain point we switch to recovery but that is only after we have made every attempt at rescue.”
He adds knowledge is power if you are ever caught up in one of these and last weeks slide could have had more fatalities if people were not equipped with proper gear.
