Accident in Power House Chutes (SPOT Activation)

[madturtle]

Saturday morning almost turned into a life changing event for Jack Burton, myself, AKBruin, Julian and Isaac. Most of all JB who took a long scary slide on an icy slope and hit the chute wall which resulted in a nasty looking head wound and a minor concussion. Luckily JB is going to be fine, and hopefully even back in action within a few weeks. But I think we all learned from the experience and thought it would be worth sharing, AKB and JB started the discussion in the east side thread.

The morning was cold with a few clouds that had the potential to build. We opted for Powerhouse Chutes, a route with a short approach and easy retreat if needed but we were really hoping the weather would clear enough to continue on to ski solstice on the shoulder of Mt Dana.

All five of us skinned up to the base of the 1st gully/chute before switching to boots to kick steps through the choke. The skinning getting to this point was challenging as conditions were firm but not bullet proof. JB was in front and kicked steps up the choke. At the top of the choke the slope angle lessened and he put his skis/skins back on and continued skinning. There was maybe 150 vf to the midway bench from the top of the choke. I'll bet JB was 25 vf from topping out on the midway bench when he started to slide backwards a little and fell.

He was sliding downhill FAST in under 2 seconds after he fell. Isaac and I were at the top of the choke by now and watched horrified screaming the obvious advice of "DIG IN, USE YOUR POLE, FUCK, GET YOUR FEET DOWNHILL, etc etc". The next 10 seconds might have been the most terrifying 10 seconds of my life as I watched one of my best buddies slide by with nothing I could do to help. He started to tumble and was going headfirst towards the chute wall. By this time he had lost both skis, not sure if he still had poles or not. Somehow he managed to partially spin around just in time so he didn't take the full brunt of impact to the wall with his head but he still hit hard and continued to tumble down through the choke.

Julian was below not too far out of the fall line when JB fell. He considered for a brief moment trying to help JB stop himself or at least stop the ski so it didn't get lost or hurt anyone below but wisely thought better of it, else we probably would have had two patients.

It was still a descently steep slope below the choke but luckliy the snow was soft enough and the slope lessened just enough that JB could stop himself or he just stopped. I started booting back down the chute fearing the worst but was relieved to see JB sit up and give a weak wave. I was thinking "Thank God" but was in disbelief he wasn't hurt worse.

Julian and AKB got to JB first once he stopped and I was on my way down to him, passing a number of bloody snow patches. Isaac was going to head up a little higher to try to call 911 from the midway bench and radio back down to us once he did.

When I got to JB he was covered in blood and had an scary looking gash on top of his head that exposed his skull. Julian and AKB immediatly covered the wound with a pair of gloves while digging in the 1st aid kit for something better. We expected the wound to bleed quite a bit more than it did so were reluctant to take the glove off to replace it with gauze but based on the lack of blood getting past the gloves we thought putting a clean dressing on would be benificial. We wrapped his head with clean gauze, a bandage and put a cotton bandana over and a winter hat over that. Luckliy the bleeding never soaked through the bandana.

At this point we assumed JB had a bad concussion and there was a real risk of spine injury. Julian had a SPOT tracker and we were all in agreement this was the time to use it. Julian more or less took the lead on the response going forward. He was good enough to get WFR certified a few years prior and was actually experienced in another rescue also.

None of us really knew what kind of a responce to expect from the SPOT and Isaac wasn't getting cell service up on the midway bench (Isaac also attempted to contact help via 9-11 on the radio) so we sent AKB down hill to drive up to the highway and call 911 and help coordinate any emergency services that did arrive. Turns out that sending the SPOT signal got Mono County SAR moving pretty quickly. But having the follow up communication was also incredibly valuable and they sent a helicopter immediatly once they knew there was a head injury involved and knew what kind of terrain they were really dealing with. We weren't terribly far from the road, both our access road and route 120 were within view but we were 1200 vf up. This actually proved to be benificial as a long slog over bare ground would have been much more difficult to deal with. There was a bit of bushwacking between the bottom of the slope and the road but all said that was manageable too.

Our next priority was to figure out jsut how badly JB was injuerd. He never lost consciousness but thought he was going to pass out at first and and his hands and arms were in a lot of pain and he felt a little tingling in his chest at first he thought. We began prepaing for either a helicopter or assisted litter evacuation at this time going on the assumption help was a few hours out. We dug out a pad in the snow, lined it with an emergency blanket and two packs and extra gloves for bottom insulation. Then we wrapped JB in all the of our down jackets and any extra clothes we had and put a second emergency blanket over the top of him. By this time it was a beautiful spring skiing morning. JB was in a quite a bit of pain, probably a bit of shock and would suffer from some shivering "fits" every few minutes but generally held it together as well as could be expected. It was tough enough to keep him warm w/ 5 peoples extra clothes on a nice spring day, dealing with this situation in a storm or at night would be a whole now story. We also dug a second pad just below the top one for heli or SAR rescue if needed. Basically a place for the SAR guys to stage and possibly place a litter if needed.

Meanwhile we also checked JB for any other bleeding and additional injuries which appeared to consist mainly of the burns/road rash on his arms, hands and knees, a possible broken hand and a smaller gash on the bridge of his nose. We asked him the standard questions about date, day, age, birthday etc to assess his awareness and slowly rolled him over to feel his spine to see if there appeared to be any fractures. By this time JB was calming down a bit and was expressing a strong desire to head down on our own.

Soon after we began discussing this AKB radioed back up that the sheriff was on site and a Black Hawk helicopter was on it's way. We radioed down that JB appeared stable and we assumed he had a concussion but other injuries seemed manageable. Soon after this we were in direct radio contact with the coordinator for the SAR. I wasn't keeping super close track of time through the ordeal but we were talking directly with SAR within 1.5-2 hours from sending the SPOT and we had visual on each other for close to 20 minutes prior to that when SAR drove up 120 directly across from our position in the Power House Chute.

We told SAR we were going to head down under our own power based on JBs condition, that the snow was soft enough to safely navigate while belaying JB, we did not want to put the helicopter crew our ourselves at risk w/ a mountain side rescue which would likely require a long line and JB is not a real fan of heights. SAR did not advise against this but they can not suggest we go out on our own either for legalese reasons I think. We did ask them to meet us at the bottom of the slope w/ a litter to help get JB across the bushes and boulders to the road and an ambulance.

We dug a second pad 20 feet below the existing one in case after we started down we realized it was not going to work. Then we rigged a seat harness with webbing and used a cordalette for belay rope that went from the normal tie in point under each arm so it made a loop. I belayed from behind walking ehind w/ and ice axe to arrest if needed. Isaac and Julian walked o either side and JB slowly butt slid down the slope. I probably could have belayed from skis but wanted to reduce the amount of snow I kicked down on JB since he was still pretty cold and we were goign to have to hike back up for skis later. We were able to carry the rest of our gear down with us.

AKBruin led SAR to our spot at the bottom of the slope. SAR had a sort of taco stretcher that we layed JB down in. They ran many of the same analysis we did up on the mountain to assess head trauma while waiting for EMTs to arrive. EMTs took over the medical evaluation from there and two more SAR brought a litter to help carry JB out. It was a bit of an ordeal to carry him over the terrrain even though we weren't far away.

[madturtle]

Once JB was in the ambulance SAR did a bit of debriefing both with us and internally and about Julian's decision to use the SPOT. They did a good job of explaining what went on once we sent the SPOT message and how their end of the response works and we met the guys we were in radio contact with from across the valley.

It was a huge relief when we met JB at the hospital to find out most of our worst concerns were alleviated. No skull fracture, no internal bleeding in his head and no broken hand either.

Besides the initial accident we got lucky in a lot of ways, AKB outlined most of them in the east side thread. (1) For the most part injuries turned out to not be nearly as bad as initially suspected was the big one, (2) access to our position was relatively easy, snow went to the bottom of the slope, we were close to the road and close to the bridge to get over the creek (3) we were in a relatively large group of 5 which allowed someone to go for help quickly and we had lots of rescue gear and extra warm clothes, (4) radios comms, SPOT, cell phone access not too far away, (5) 5 AWESOME ski partners and everyone kept there cool had some medical training and Julian was WFR certified, (6) weather was good and we had daylight.

Any one of these factors not being present could have quickly turned the whole situation into a much bigger ordeal with serious consequences. Some are mitigateable others are a big part of what draws us to backcountry skiing in the 1st place.

For anyone still reading all this thanks and below are a few pics of the slope JB tumbled down for reference. Pics were taken the following morning after about 6 inches of snow fell saturday night.

Isaac is standing about where JB finally stopped.

Some where along here is where he hit the wall. Luckily there weren't any sharp corners or ledges sticking out that might've stopped him immediatly (which likely woudl have caused much more serious injuries).


This was taken about where we swiched back to skins above the choke. JB was in the upper right of the photo when he started to slide. Slope was maybe 35 in the choke and maybe mid 20s above and below it. I think we under estimated the exposure while skinning above the choke, none of us were wearing helmets on this portion of the climb, a whippet probably would have been helpful and booting all the way to the midway bench in hind site would've been better but we had actually skinned the entire thing the previous day in a little softer conditions.


This is looking down from about where JB started to fall.

Looking up though the choke

[AKbruin]

Nice write-up, dude. I think analyzing and reporting/sharing these kind of incidents is pretty helpful for all involved.

Incidentally, I bought the new Spot device yesterday from REI. It's half the size of Julian's.

[splat]

Good work, guys. Sounds like the rescue effort went like clockwork considering the phone access and the coordination with SAR. Assessing the breadth of someone's injuries can be difficult immediately following a situation, given the pain and shock factors, especially when there's a head injury.

This is something I can totally relate to because I got hurt real bad (ribs and head on rocks) in Ellery about 18 years ago and the guys I was with had no idea what to do. I was pretty convinced I was gonna die there. I eventually got up and skied down, damn glad I was able to.
Thanks for sharing.

[bendtheski]

Turtle,
Great read, thanks for posting!

I'm a 911 dispatcher in Clear Creek County and I'm pretty sure our SAR guys would be very happy if all BC users were as prepared as you guys seem to have been!

Sounds like there was a little bit of luck involved with the extent of JB's injuries (accidents just happen sometimes), but beyond that the preparation and forethought of everyone in your group helped to expedite a response from SAR, kept the victim as comfortable as possible, and got him out of the field and treated as quickly as could be hoped for.

Strong work by all involved!

[hutash]

Good write up, and even better on slope decision making.

The only thing I would question was the decision to move knowgin SAR was on the scene. Head and neck injuries have so much potential to be disastrous, that I would have considered waiting until a stretcher was on sight before moving, and letting SAR make the call on a heli evac. I am not saying you made the wrong call, since you guys did everything very well.

One thing I learned from a similar situation was to make a neck collar after any head injury.

[AKbruin]

Good write up, and even better on slope decision making.

The only thing I would question was the decision to move knowgin SAR was on the scene. Head and neck injuries have so much potential to be disastrous, that I would have considered waiting until a stretcher was on sight before moving, and letting SAR make the call on a heli evac. I am not saying you made the wrong call, since you guys did everything very well.

One thing I learned from a similar situation was to make a neck collar after any head injury.

You make an excellent point, but here's a little clarification. Julian was able to do a full spinal check on JB relatively early one and confirmed that he was okay in that regard. The decision to move him was actually made in conjunction with SAR, who didn't voice a strong opinion one way or the other. In the end, bringing him down probably saved two hours--SAR would have had to have hiked up about 1500' vf with very heavy equipment before reaching him. The interesting thing is that SAR emphasized that this was our (really JB's) decision to make at that time, and then later, informally over fish tacos at the Mo-Mart, said that we made the right decision to move him. As for the heli, it was a tempting option, but heli rescues at windier, high altitudes like the Dana Plateau are far from safe (which is why they called in the bad-ass Black Hawk from the Air Force instead of using the local CHP heli).

Anyhow, I think under other circumstances, waiting for SAR or using the heli would have been the right call. But bringing him down seemed to be a reasonable call in our particular circumstances.

[SchralphMacchio]

Thanks for sharing Matt. Good stuff to share.

Helps having the WFR onsite for sure! Lots of smart decisions made here. The decisions to let JB slide by must have felt horrific but I think they were the right calls ... I've been trained, and agree, that the first course of action is to STOP! Assess the situation, let the hazard to abate and not turn one victim into more victims.

Did you guys immobilize for spinal precautions when doing the assessment? When did you decide to release spinal precautions?

Good note on the extra layers. Even when it's pretty warm out I always like to have my down packed away for injuries. When I crashed inbounds in 2009, even with a very fast patroller response to find me by the time I got rescued and into the Kirkwood Clinic my core temp was 94 - stage 2 hypothermia. It's really easy to lose temp fast when injured and the extra layers are literal lifesavers ... but they take up room in your pack and it might look like a warm day. Lately I've been packing a compressible synthetic but I might go back to the down (although this is worse if it rains I guess), and also add a longsleeve midlayer to just have always.

Also the radios. Mine were stolen 2 years ago and I've not replaced them, but I think I'm going to get some that also have a NOAA weather receiver.

[madturtle]

I look back and question whether going down was a good idea or not. Or for that matter calling off the heli. How easy is it to misdiagnose a spine injury or a worse head injury? We spent close to an hour making assessements for this decision.

If the head injury seemed worse and time seemed more critical we would've called the heli. If we had signs of spine injury we would've waited for litter or heli'd out on a backboard.

Like AKB said it saved a ton of time bringing him down ourselves (as opposed to waiting to haul the litter up), I'll bet a litter evac would've been 3-4 hours longer to be honest between getting it up there and belaying it down in 250 ft pitches. It was likely too steep to ski down w/o belay for much if the way I think.

[Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer]

Great write-up MT. Thanks for taking the time. Good decision making and process by you all. Vibes to JB to heal up.

WFR is the shit. I got WFA quite a long time ago (about 10 years), and every year I say I am going to take the WFR course but don't. I really should and want to, though.

Similar to Scralph, I always have a puffy and always have a emergency blanket for this exact reason. Shock and temp regulation. Also have a PLB, but hope to never use it.

[madturtle]

We did immobilize or at least attempted immobilize while we checked his spine. I tried to hold JBs head straight and up as much as possible until we laid him down on the dugout pad. We confirmed he never lost consiousness, seemed to be alert and oriented, coudl feel all his extremeties and coudl wiggle toes, fingers adn coudl grip w/ both hands. I think we should have also had him show he could push up and down w/ hands adn toes which we missed.

Once this was done we rolled him w/ spine as straight as possible and felt each vertabrae to see if any were painful or f any felt out of place or cracked.

When all of these tests were negative we decided we could go down on our own and it was unlikely he had a spine injury.

Hutash what did you make a collar out of? How effective do you think it really was? I'm not sure a neckroll would be effective did you build it up w/ anything?

[powdork]

duct tape. when in doubt, the answer is always duct tape.

thanks for sharing. glad everything turned out ok.

how would you have reacted differently in the beginning without the SPOT?

[AKbruin]

how would you have reacted differently in the beginning without the SPOT?

I didn't even know that our party had a Spot and activated it until the 911 dispatcher told me. The advantage in our particular situation was that SAR began assembling immediately after the accident instead of 60 minutes later when I was able to make the 911 call. If we had been somewhere deep in the backcountry where it would have been difficult to get cell coverage, it would have made a huge difference. Also, as someone who has been tempting fate by going solo more often these days, having an emergency satellite link to SAR showing them my GPS coordinates seems invaluable.

[hutash]

I apologize, I didn't mean to question the decision, it was more stimulate discussion here. It sounds like you guys did all the right things based on good assessments. Doing a good field
Neuro work up is critical, and it sounds like you guys did it better then most would in that situation.

[hutash]

We did immobilize or at least attempted immobilize while we checked his spine. I tried to hold JBs head straight and up as much as possible until we laid him down on the dugout pad. We confirmed he never lost consiousness, seemed to be alert and oriented, coudl feel all his extremeties and coudl wiggle toes, fingers adn coudl grip w/ both hands. I think we should have also had him show he could push up and down w/ hands adn toes which we missed.

Once this was done we rolled him w/ spine as straight as possible and felt each vertabrae to see if any were painful or f any felt out of place or cracked.

When all of these tests were negative we decided we could go down on our own and it was unlikely he had a spine injury.

Hutash what did you make a collar out of? How effective do you think it really was? I'm not sure a neckroll would be effective did you build it up w/ anything?

That all sounds excellent...great job by all of you.

As for a neck brace, the incident I referred to was a hospital bed discussion. After a mountaineering accident a friend ended up in traction a Bishop hospital, and fortunately recovered fine, but I was not involved in the incident. This was 30 years ago, long before PLBs and cellphones, hell it was barely past smoke signals. It was nearly 24 hours from accident to hospital. We decided at that time that a collar made of an insulite pad would have been best, especially because of the duration. Remember this was 30'years ago. The bottom line is to make it out of materials at hand. I make them for dogs out of roll cotton and tape. Even a down jacket twisted then wrapped around the neck would help to
some degree. The less mobile the head and neck is the better if there is any question at all. It sounds like it would have been over kill in this situation after the good assessment done.

Again, excellent job by everyone, and again I apologize. I was not questioning you judgement.

[SchralphMacchio]

MT, I can see your strife about the decision making process with respect to the self-evac and moving the casualty. That's an area I too feel like I need to reinforce.

I feel like checking for memory loss, loss of consciousness, alert & oriented / level of consciousness questions are not hard field tests ... what has always boggled my mind is releasing spinal precautions by feeling the spinal processes and looking for pain or irregularity. Your note about the hand and toe resistance/strength check is a good one, I think I would have forgotten that too. Also, a full head to toe workup is so hard with all the ski gear involved ... did you guys remove his boots during the head to toe?

My confusion about the release of spinal precaution has to do with pain masking. In our crowd everyone is so fit, and there is so much adrenaline, that pain is often masked or difficult to detect. When I had my crash in 2009 I didn't even know that I had a back injury until the next day. My ribs were in so much pain I thought everything bad was in the front. The rescuers did a very brief check of my spine, but I had a thick midlayer and bib flaps in the way of a detailed check. I told them I was okay and after not finding any pain points on the spinal column they didn't collar but based on the extreme MOI alone I wonder if they should have maintained full spinal precautions for the rescue. (Not once did either of the two patrollers do the headhold grip with the elbows on the shoulderblades during assessment.) The MOI was that I wrapped myself horizontally around a tree from being airborne going to a complete stop - instant deceleration absorbed by my torso and back. The point is that after it was sorted out days later I found I had like 4 sprained ligaments between my spinal processes but I had no clue that my back was even hurt immediately after the injury.

Simply put, I just don't know enough about disabling spinal injuries to make a field decision that I'd feel good about when a high-energy MOI is involved.

To give you some praise to cover your self-doubt, I'm sure you were also monitoring his condition continuously during the descent, plus you had the contingency of a secondary treatment pad. My assumption is that any (well, most) threats to life would have been observable during the descent as a change in condition, and therefore any (almost all that you could practically handle) mistake in the decision to move the casualty under self-evac would have been sussed out immediately. So what I'm saying is that, based on my very limited training and knowledge, I think you guys made the proper decision.

On the WFA note, I already sent AKB the info but I figure I'd put it here as well. I put in a recommendation for Bobbie Foster ... she's come with strong recommendations from others and I believe her training to be very comprehensive and thorough. Her website is www.fostercalm.com.

[madturtle]

Hutash no appologies necessary at all. We are all big boys and can take a bit of criticism. I wrote all this out so people could poke holes in what we did and myself and anyone that spends the time to read the incident will be better prepared going forward.

Shralp we never took his boots off. Just took his word he could wiggle his toes and he could could squeeze Julian's hands. Being able to push up and down w/ his hands was an additional test the SAR guys did at the base of the slope that we forgot. We also checked pupil response on the slope before heading down. We should have checked ears for any bleeding also but failed to do this.

As far as adrenaline we did wait nearly 2 hours before heading down to see if there was any changes in condition and to let some adrenaline subside but that's one thing I'd ask the greater population here if that was enough time or foolhardy. JB was pretty adament he wanted to head down and felt up to it but told us he would defer to our judgement since he might not be the best judge at the time.

[Ottime]

Wow guys. Thank you for the write up and glad to hear everything worked its way out. That must have been some crazy times on the slope.

And it has me thinking, as I am currently in the market to replace my back pack. this helps reinforce the idea that I need to size up a bit from my heli-pro. I often travel light. Too light. No real first aid, no puffy, no blanket, etc. This scenario makes me realize that is not good. And it is really only laziness that makes me travel light - no a weight saving thing.

I don't no if this is luck or experience, but one other factor I would put in your list that helped tremendously is that you were well supplied. The harness and ropes seem like they were crucial in your decision to move down your selves.

I also am considering how often I ski w/o my helmet and am trying to think when I may have done so above exposure. I could see why you may not have in this case having descended your route last spring. It is a slow roll over toward the choke, yet I can also see why one should have taken other precautions. I certainly can see why once a slide started, it would have been really hard to stop. All good informations that we should take lessons from.

I want to commend you all for keeping your cool, working as a team and helping JB get to a hospital.

[thudder]

I don't ski in the back country yet, but it's something I'd like to do. I learned a lot from this post about how much I need to do to get prepared for that. Thanks.

[SchralphMacchio]

thudder, good on you for being motivated to get learned.

The training and preparation you need should be commensurate with the level of commitment and hazard you would be subjecting yourself to on any given trip. Roadside touring of a 25-degree mellow snow field with no overhanging exposure (avy paths, rockfall etc), no exposed rocks in the fall line, supportable spring conditions in consistent snow and full cell reception requires a different amount of preparation and than a 5 mile skin to a rock-walled couloir that funnels 3 avalanche starting zones into a cheesegrater exposed area in variable March snow plus no cell reception. The latter was not the case here - I'm just illustrating that there are many different levels of commitment to hazard in given routes. The former has not as many variables that you might be required to manage.

My recommendation is to get out there with some good partners on routes that don't require you to commit to dealing with a lot of crap. There is some mellow stuff in the Rose area, from which you can study more complex terrain with your own eyes. Tune your eyes to try to see various hazards above and below and ask yourself, your buddies, how you/they would mitigate those hazards or deal with a situation if one of those hazards actually materialized. If you don't think you can recognize or deal with certain elements and the consequences are outside of your risk tolerance, back off that route/terrain and get more training.

MT stated the main takeaway pretty clearly here:

I think we under estimated the exposure while skinning above the choke

That's a great lesson we can all share. They may have underestimated the exposure, but thankfully due to great training and experience they were in a position to deal with the consequence.

[rod9301]

IVe been following this thread for the last week or so, but I was too drugged out to contribute anything.

I had a bad fall on emerson n couloir two weeks ago. My second turn from the top, I fell backwards on an icy spot and cartwheeled for about 600 ft.
I kept trying to stop but the speed and steepness made it impossible until the snow got softer and the slope got below 45 degrees.
I had a whippet in my right hand, but I let go immediately, and even though I was thinking about it (mostly that I didn't want to impale myself on it), I was not able to get anywhere close to being able to self arrest whith it.
If the angle would have stayed above 45deg and the snow would have stayed hard, I dont think I could have stopped. And with at least 1000ft left to slide, not sure if I could have survived it.

So not sure how much the whippet could help in a fall. One like mine, backwards head first, I wasn't able to use it. If the edges don't hold, maybe, but in that case, I probably couldn't self arrest either, on ice where you can't hold an edge.
On why I fell:
I lost my mental focus. On the way up,i noticedard ice crust near the top, skiers left of the couloir. Yet on my second turn, I went exactly to the icy spot, with speed, got back and as the couloir was concave there, my tails got below me and I fell backwards.

In the 12 years since I've been bc skiing, this is my second fall in a place that could have consequences. First one was on powerhouse, but the snow was soft and I stopped within 10ft or so.

in the past two years, I've been working a lot on my ski technique, with good results, and I got a bit cocky.
In fact, I remember thinking earlier this year that it's been a long time since I've fallen and does it mean a fall is in my near future ?

As a result, I haven't been skiing as cautiously in high consequence areas.

bottom line though, shit will happen, and you have to accept the consequences of a fall,

[PBR and POW = FUN]

Hey Madturtle,

Thanks for contributing your story. This is George, the dude who found you guy's skis and the few other things you had to leave up top. Sorry I couldn't get all four pair down. I had already climbed up Dana and hit 3rd P that day, and then phouse. I've never skied, but carrying them gave me a whole new respect for skiers. One pair of skis weight about as much as 3 or 4 snowboards. It looks like you guys found the two pair I had to leave mid way down.

I'm glad to hear everyone ended up okay in the end. I had saw the path in the snow where you guys had slid him down, and then I found someones open salsa or something. This made me wonder if you guys had took a break to eat and someone lost it and had slid all the way to the bottom. Anyway, its good to know that there are people out there who keep their cool and know what to do when the worse happens.

[madturtle]

Rod that's gnarly. Glad you are healing up. Hopefully' you'll be full strength before too long.

George, Thanks again. I owe you a shit ton of PBR next time we meet up. How'd you end up in powerhouse after skiing 3rd pillar did you climb back out the chute? Those were our tracks in 3rd pillar from the day before, we skied the apron then climbed around the ridge to skiers left and skiied one of the aspen chutes down to the creek.

[klar]

good thread and valuable write up. madturtle knows my story but i'll put in in here for the public

i slipped while booting across a patch of snow 5 weeks ago and slid close to 200m vert over snow and some scree patches. finally stopped on a bit of grass w/ rocks still on the slope. my arm was bent the wrong way and i was bleeding from some cuts on my leg and smaller scratches in my face. i could feel that there was something wrong with my back but it didn't seem that bad, i could move and feel all extremeties. especially compared to the pain from the broken arm the back was very minor.

in the alps we are lucky to be extremely well set up for heli rescue and there was never any doubt about calling the heli. walking to the next road would have taken 4 hours or so normally. i doubt i could have walked so to self rescue my 2 partners would have had to carry me in a bivy bag sling for a long time and across considerable distance (snowline way above the road so no but sliding or similar) the heli showed up after 20 min or so. it was very reassuring to have the rescue team there, they were extremely professional and friendly. they asked the usual questions about date/birthday etc (my partners had also done this), gave me painkillers and put me in a stretcher/ bag thingy for long line rescue. my arm was my main concern ie source of pain and while i told them that my back also hurt a bit they did not do anything to check for injuries, probably seeing as i was effectively immobilized anyway once in the bag.

final damage was a dislocated and broken ellbow, 2 fractured vertebrae and a bunch of cuts and bruises. from accident to hospital took just under an hour and i am incredibly grateful to have had the option of the heli.

[Sparky]

^^^ Owwch, Klar I hope you heal up really soon.

Thank you for the report OP. You seemed to be well equipped, and made some good decisions - often hard to do under pressure.