Man rescues brother buried by avalanche on Christmas Eve in Utah
In the mountains of northern Utah on Christmas Eve, a man saved his brother after an avalanche buried him under several feet of snow.
The siblings were sledding Tuesday in the Franklin Basin, near the Idaho border, when one of them triggered an avalanche at 9,000 feet of elevation, according to the Utah Avalanche Center.
One of the two men reported seeing the slope ripple around his sled before he quickly rode to safety. He watched as his brother was carried 150 yards by the avalanche and "completely buried" under the snow, the avalanche center said.
The man who had avoided the avalanche used a transceiver to located the general area where his sibling was buried. Then, he saw a few fingers of a gloved hand sticking out of the snow, according to the report.
He dug his brother out of the snow and the two rode out of the backcountry. The brother caught in the avalanche had only minor injuries, the report said.
Forecasters for the avalanche center said conditions were favorable for avalanches throughout northern Utah and southern Idaho.
Weather officials on Thursday issued avalanche warnings at high elevations in Washington and Oregon as an atmospheric river fueled snowstorms across the Pacific Northwest.
An average of 28 people are killed in avalanches each winter in the U.S., often from suffocation, trauma, or hypothermia, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.