A British skier has survived after she was buried alive in an avalanche and declared clinically dead.
Rhianna Shaw, 23, was entombed in the snow for 15 minutes following the accident in the Austrian mountains.
There is only a six per cent chance of resuscitation once someone has been buried in deep snow for eight minutes.
Miss Shaw, from Chichester, West Sussex, said yesterday it was ‘absolutely terrifying’ as she could not move and her friends could not hear her screams for help.
She said: ‘There was several feet of snow on top of me. You usually think snow will move but it just sets like concrete around you.
‘I was absolutely frozen and I couldn’t move an inch. I could just about make out which way was up as a little bit of light was coming through and I could hear faint sounds.
‘All I could do was scream for help, but no one could hear me.
‘They thought I might have skied off and I could hear my mobile ringing in my pocket but I couldn’t answer it. It was absolutely terrifying.’
The accident happened on Thursday last week when Miss Shaw, who is spending the ski season working in Austria, was skiing off piste near St Anton with five friends. She had been out on the same slopes several times before.
She said: ‘We hadn’t had snow for a couple of weeks then lots came down and it was a lovely sunny day so we decided to go out.
‘We went round this one bit and me and my friend Alistair were coming down side by side and he was on a snowboard and we had a minor collision and I lost both skis.
‘It normally wouldn’t be a problem but it started a bit of snowfall. Then the others came down and a massive ledge of snowfall broke away and it carried me down the slope around 150 metres.
‘I was completely buried alive and no part of me was above the surface. I would rather have not been conscious but I was.‘I couldn’t move, my arms were frozen. The most I could do was shriek, but they couldn’t hear me. I tried not to panic.’
She owes her life to her quick-thinking friends, who formed a chain across the mountain and retraced their steps, using ski poles to probe the snow as they searched for her. They found the back of her leg and managed to dig her out.By this time, Miss Shaw was clinically dead as she had no pulse and was not breathing. But one of her friends gave her CPR – and against the odds, it worked.
She added: ‘I must have been buried for at least 15 minutes and probably stayed conscious for five minutes.
‘I was conscious I was trapped and I would probably die. There is only a six per cent chance of resuscitation once you are pulled out of the snow like that so I was incredibly lucky.’
After 11 minutes buried under the snow, most skiers die. Miss Shaw was taken to hospital by helicopter and put on a drip. A week on, she is ‘doing well’ but still haunted by the accident.
She said: ‘It hits me at strange times. It’s like a weird bad dream. I won’t be going off piste again in a hurry.’
St Anton was one of the resorts cut off after 10ft of powder fell in the Austrian Alps in just 48 hours last month, leaving all roads in and out of the village closed and an estimated 1,000 British tourists stuck.
Avalanche expert Rudi Mair said at the time: ‘This is a type of snowfall the like of which we have not seen for years. Combined with that, there are very high winds which are making conditions especially dangerous.’
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