Avalanche airbags, how effective are they really?

[DudeLebowSKI]

I've worn an ABS bag for three years now and wondered how it might effect my habits mindset as well. Let me tell you...it doesn't. I have never taken an additional risk with because the thought of having an ABS bag on my back might be a ticket to safety. Think of it this way. If you're looking down a slope with the potential to avalanche, do you still want to drop in even though you know you have something that "might" save you?

I didn't think so. My bc habits haven't changed one bit since wearing an ABS. It's just nice to know that if the shit does hit the fan, I have one more hope to survive beyond being unburied by my friends.

Other than the fact that I don't own an airbag, I think the same way. When I am geared up (beacon, shovel, probe, etc..) my avalanche awareness is heightened whether I am skiing in bounds or in the backcountry. The pure fact that I have the safety items in my possession fuels a more cautious attitude towards the slopes I am skiing. That being said, I bet it's not the same for everyone.

[DudeLebowSKI]

If there's one thing I learned as a stats major in college, it is that just about every "stat" created is bullshit. You could give me hard data that basically proves one thing and I could manipulate it to prove the exact opposite.

75% percent of people would tend to agree with you.

[hutash]

75% percent of people would tend to agree with you.

I disagree with the conclusion reached in such a statement.

[wcf3]

http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor...lowing-Up.html

What’s more, the high survival rate associated with air bags may reflect another statistic, one that’s consistently overlooked in discussions of avalanche mortality: more than 90 percent of avalanches that catch people aren’t deadly in the first place, and most aren’t even reported. The 262 slides measured in the 2008 Swiss study almost certainly included nonserious avalanches that probably wouldn’t have killed their victims in the first place.

Hmmmm ... interesting ...

Given that the article does some pranging of ABS statistics, I feel obligated to ask the question: Where do they get the number 90% (of avalanches don't result in fatalities and usually aren't reported). I don't doubt that there are quite a few avalanches that don't result in fatalities and go unreported, but how do they have any idea how many avalanches go unreported? Talk about a fuzzy statistic...

[Jonathan S.]

Yes, that 90% figure is suspiciously round and with no citation.
As for the 97% figure, that appears to be based on the database that ABS used to post on its website (for actual user deployments, not experiments), but it seems to exclude failed deployments (which granted are almost always user error, but then again, so is an avalanche, I.e., don't just assume it couldn't happen to you).

[Gurterno]

Yesterday a group of Swiss skiers with a French guide got caught in an avalanche i Northern Norway. Unfortunately 5 died. This was just a couple of hours from the location of the accident I wrote about previously. The reports are still differing but at least one and maybe all were wearing Avy Airbags. They were wearing avygear and could be localized but were buried up to 6-8 m deep. I guess it took too long to dig them out. It appears the airbags don't stand a chance in these big avalanches

http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/Hj...t-6788557.html

[SiSt]

Yesterday a group of Swiss skiers with a French guide got caught in an avalanche i Northern Norway. Unfortunately 5 died. This was just a couple of hours from the location of the accident I wrote about previously. The reports are still differing but at least one and maybe all were wearing Avy Airbags. They were wearing avygear and could be localized but were buried up to 6-8 m deep. I guess it took too long to dig them out. It appears the airbags don't stand a chance in these big avalanches

http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/Hj...t-6788557.html

Some here as well: http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/s...-Tromso-Norway

Not sure on whether the bags were deployed or not, but the slide was so massive that it likely won´t make much of a difference. Apparently the skiers were swept while skiing a steep pitch, and may have been taken for a ride of several hundred meters in vertical drop. The chance of surviving something like that are extremely slim in the first place. We´ll see some more detailed reports later, but my hunch is that they were killed by trauma, not suffocation.

[JRiph]

the norwegian slide is the equivalent of driving into a bunker at 100 MPH with a car equipped with airbags..the likeliness of survival is very slim to none.

But is an S class Merc equipped with 20 airbags, ABS, ATC etc etc . safer than a Corvair.. hell yeah! Are you invulnerable.. hell no!

an ABS/RAS/snowpulse/avivest or whatever can increase your survival odds depending on the a priori risks.
The a priori odds are the ones you should be worried about , because the risks you introduce may well be independent for the countermeasure you introduce .

will you die you when basejumping fully naked.. 100%. (will the bag help?.. uuuhm nope)
will you die when fully covered in an avalanche without a transciever and people to dig you up: 99.99999999% ( will the bag help? well yes..but only when it prevents you from being buried)
will you get killed when the slide hits a forest/cliff.. very probably : 96.9999. (made up number) ( will the bag help? very probably not, but it might)

will you die when fully covered in an avalanche and deeply burried with a transciever and without injuries : say 30 % survival (just a number I made up)
will you die when fully covered in an avalanche ( shallow burrial )with a transciever and without injuries : say 65 % survival ( just a number I made up)
will you die when fully covered in an avalanche partialy burried with a transciever and without injuries: say 90% survival ( just a number I made up)

Will the bag protect you from getting burried? maybe, maybe not (fully).


Will the bag shave one maybe two minutes of burial time in case of being covered..i'd wager a guess depending on the type of slide.. yes.

if it saves 2 ft of burial depth is would be about that.

If you can turn a 30% into a 65% it is a good deal. Anything that can shave a few G's off a head impact is worthwhile and every minute without air is brain cells lost.

But the choice of the line will affect the a priori risks. Releasing a 3/4 mile wide wildslab into a terrain trap ( Hammer & Anvil) is a priori a bad start.


just my 2 cts

[Gurterno]

the norwegian slide is the equivalent of driving into a bunker at 100 MPH with a car equipped with airbags..the likeliness of survival is very slim to none.

But is an S class Merc equipped with 20 airbags, ABS, ATC etc etc . safer than a Corvair.. hell yeah! Are you invulnerable.. hell no!

an ABS/RAS/snowpulse/avivest or whatever can increase your survival odds depending on the a priori risks.
The a priori odds are the ones you should be worried about , because the risks you introduce may well be independent for the countermeasure you introduce .

will you die you when basejumping fully naked.. 100%. (will the bag help?.. uuuhm nope)
will you die when fully covered in an avalanche without a transciever and people to dig you up: 99.99999999% ( will the bag help? well yes..but only when it prevents you from being buried)
will you get killed when the slide hits a forest/cliff.. very probably : 96.9999. (made up number) ( will the bag help? very probably not, but it might)

will you die when fully covered in an avalanche and deeply burried with a transciever and without injuries : say 30 % survival (just a number I made up)
will you die when fully covered in an avalanche ( shallow burrial )with a transciever and without injuries : say 65 % survival ( just a number I made up)
will you die when fully covered in an avalanche partialy burried with a transciever and without injuries: say 90% survival ( just a number I made up)

Will the bag protect you from getting burried? maybe, maybe not (fully).


Will the bag shave one maybe two minutes of burial time in case of being covered..i'd wager a guess depending on the type of slide.. yes.

if it saves 2 ft of burial depth is would be about that.

If you can turn a 30% into a 65% it is a good deal. Anything that can shave a few G's off a head impact is worthwhile and every minute without air is brain cells lost.

But the choice of the line will affect the a priori risks. Releasing a 3/4 mile wide wildslab into a terrain trap ( Hammer & Anvil) is a priori a bad start.


just my 2 cts

Mr Obvious

The point of this whole thread is to discuss the statistics presented by ABS and to have a healthy scepticism. I don't think anyone believes they do not help at all. To you that's 100% believe it helps a bit (made up number)

[JRiph]

Obvious it may seem but you managed to not see my point all together

As i am bored i will take a good look at the actual SLF data presented.

As for your initial question. Airbags are they effective? the above (very obvious but the obvious is oft overlooked) is pretty crucial.

The interpretation of the risk would be more illustrated by the following..



no worries mate they only go off 3% of the time..

[marshalolson]

airbags exist to MINIMIZE injury/fatality, not ELIMINATE it.

[Gurterno]

airbags exist to MINIMIZE injury/fatality, not ELIMINATE it.

Now everyone is just saying the same thing. This is the point. It's just nice to gather the cases where it didn't work. It's easier for people to remember actual cases where it didn't work then just to think of the 3%.

[StuntCok]

At the risk of digressing, is there burial stats for snowboarders vs. skiers? I have a buddy who is reluctant to buy an airbag because of a rather fatalistic opinion that his snowboard is such an anchor that he will be buried anyway.

[DropCliffsNotBombs]

I haven't changed my bc skiing decisions at all since getting my airbag pack. Not one bit. And I only wear it above tree line.

[bl2000]

Now everyone is just saying the same thing.

You could say that about 75% of threads longer than 20 posts. Or is it 97%?

The arguments over air bags reminds me of the same with BCDs for diving safety in the 1970s.

[marshalolson]

i would like to see a study that says no airbag is somehow safer or even remotely close to as safe. oh yeah, they don't exist.

who cares if its 97% or 95% or 90%. most stats are 3x-10x better than without one.

even if an airbag is 2% safer i would wear it for that small advantage.

[jonathanc]

It's all just conjecture until we have some serious #'s to backup an argument like that. Clearly guys with substantial backcountry training are getting caught - now the question is what % of the skier caused avalanches are set off by people with substantial training and years of experience versus less experience but a more keyed up mind that they're in a potentially life threatening environment.

I can tell you from my rock climbing background, that it's way more common to hear about guys with a wealth of experience making judgement errors. They get relaxed because they have done things hundreds, thousands of times. The newbs are still triple checking knots and checking their partners belay devices.

Again, it's baseless opinion without real #'s - but it's interesting to discuss.

I agree with this sentiment. I'm not overly experienced in the backcountry, only getting out a few dozen times a year, however I was lucky enough that my very first real multi-day backcountry trip involved a near miss with a fairly massive icefall avalanche (less than 100m from the slide path). Since that time, i've found myself in a leadership role on backcountry trips, and i'm always the guy who will back down from a route rather than send it if I am unsure of conditions.

Perhaps it is due to my personal experience, but no amount of gear is going to get me into serious harms' way. It could be a personality thing.. I know some idiots who will look at a slope and say "not sure, but let's try anyways", while i'm more like "Not sure, rather not take the risk". But more likely it's the classic Mountaineers' "sphere of acceptable risk". Everyone has one, it's usually the extremely experienced guys with a high tolerance or acceptance of risk.

[freak]

Yes, that 90% figure is suspiciously round and with no citation.

the whole advertising of ABS is (and has always) been kinda suspicious. theyre always strongly decrying their competitors, and tell you things like "rather get an abs-pack instead of a beacon, because you wont need a beacon with the pack".
dunno why they cant just let their product and the tests/statistics/whatever speak for them...


freak~[&]

[whyturn]

More vest options please, otherwise it may be float 22. Oh, and I think they increase odds just like classes, certs, books, training, OST (On Ski Training), etc. I like better odds of going home not in a box.

[PNWbrit]

the whole advertising of ABS is (and has always) been kinda suspicious. theyre always strongly decrying their competitors, and tell you things like "rather get an abs-pack instead of a beacon, because you wont need a beacon with the pack".
dunno why they cant just let their product and the tests/statistics/whatever speak for them...

Could you provide examples of this? I'm sure they haven't.

[barcolounger]

This. If people start taking bigger risks because they have a airbag, it will negate the benefit of the bag in the first place.

That statement doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Bigger than what, the risk you deemed barely too high yesterday before buying X? But yesterday's threshold was also influenced by your safety gear. I'd skip certain descents if I thought a broken leg would mean a bivvy and I wasn't prepared to spend a few nights outside waiting to be found. But if I had a locator beacon, or better yet a helicopter standing by, I'd tear it up.

What people do is to split the difference; if X reduces the likelihood of death by 10%, they take 3% more risk, or 7%, or something less than 10% So X reduces the overall death rate but not by the full 10%. Whether people think about it in these terms doesn't matter, they operate this way regardless.

You could argue that avvy air bags create moral hazard because now you're more likely to set off a slide that kills someone else. I'd buy that.

[freak]

Could you provide examples of this? I'm sure they haven't.

i dont get what you mean, but they had several advertisements (mainly on german/austrian/swiss websites, but ive also seen some posters) with an abs and snowpulse pack and slogans like "you wouldnt buy a bike with one wheel if you could get one with two" or something like that. cant find a link atm, but it was in german anyway and i dont keep track of advertising that much.
for the other thin, i remember speaking to the founder of abs 5 or so years ago and he asked me and some friends if we had abs-packs, we replied no, he asked why we said too shitty&heavy packs but mainly because they were too expensive for us to afford. he then asked if we hab beacons, we said yes, then he said that we were stupid because we should have rather bought abs-packs instead of the beacons, because with an abs-pack you wont get buried and therefore wouldnt need a beacon...
ive heard of several similar experiences, especially with the abs-marketing people.

freak~[&]

[mc_roon]

That statement doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Bigger than what, the risk you deemed barely too high yesterday before buying X? But yesterday's threshold was also influenced by your safety gear. I'd skip certain descents if I thought a broken leg would mean a bivvy and I wasn't prepared to spend a few nights outside waiting to be found. But if I had a locator beacon, or better yet a helicopter standing by, I'd tear it up.

What people do is to split the difference; if X reduces the likelihood of death by 10%, they take 3% more risk, or 7%, or something less than 10% So X reduces the overall death rate but not by the full 10%. Whether people think about it in these terms doesn't matter, they operate this way regardless.

You could argue that avvy air bags create moral hazard because now you're more likely to set off a slide that kills someone else. I'd buy that.

In my mind it is the exact same as your example. Your decision making process was completely changed by the gear and/or access to assistance.

While I think most people operate under the constraints you wrote above trying to put a hard number on the %increase in acceptable risk is impossible. As you said, most people approach a slope with at least a thought of the consequences, and that requires factoring in their safety gear into the decision making process. Just like having a PLB or a helicopter influenced your decision, having an airbag would change the acceptable risk for most people, and some would certainly increase their risk tolerance to a point where the benefits of the airbag would be canceled out and then some.

[old goat]

Re: statistics and heuristics. The survival statistic for ABS deployment matters a lot. In rock climbing people obviously are willing to climb much harder stuff with a rope than solo--to the point that people routinely climb routes with a very high chance of a leader fall. Nobody gets upset that the availability of a safety device has changed what people are willing to climb, because the safety device is so good (not perfect). If an ABS, or some other yet-to-be-invented avy protection gear were as effective as a belay system than it would be appropriate to ski lines with higher risk of avalanche than without the device. Hopefully with time the statistics for ABS will become more clear. And in the meantime think of backcountry skiing as a form of mountaineering--wth similar risks--about the same number of deaths per year in the US and I'm guessing a fairly similar number of participant days. In other words backcountry skiing, in terms of risk, is much more similar to climbing than it is to resort skiing (and probably always will be).

[garyfromterrace]

I've worn an ABS bag for three years now and wondered how it might effect my habits mindset as well. Let me tell you...it doesn't. I have never taken an additional risk with because the thought of having an ABS bag on my back might be a ticket to safety. Think of it this way. If you're looking down a slope with the potential to avalanche, do you still want to drop in even though you know you have something that "might" save you?

I didn't think so. My bc habits haven't changed one bit since wearing an ABS. It's just nice to know that if the shit does hit the fan, I have one more hope to survive beyond being unburied by my friends.

What he said...