Avalanche often takes place in rugged mountainous area that is not easily accessible. The affected area is also often out of normal telecommunication coverage. This often delays response, while the avalanche victim has a short window of survival, and hence high casualties.
Remember, you are the sole rescuer, and you have to start the rescue immediately. So have the necessary know how in advance, and act fast.
Reduce avalanche risk
- Educate yourself about your local avalanche risk.
- Know the signs of increased danger, including recent avalanches, and shooting cracks across slopes.
- Prepare for an avalanche, and get proper equipment to protect you from head injuries, and create air pockets.
- Get an avalanche beacon, and always keep it with you to help rescuers locate you. Everyone in your group should have one, and know how to use it. These beacons work like radios: these transmit frequencies, and can alert other beacon carriers about your exact location. Having a beacon could make all the difference between life, and death as you wait for rescue. Remember that a person has 85% chance of surviving if she is dug up in 15 minutes; it drops to 40% after 30 minutes.
- Get an avalanche airbag that may help you from being completely buried. Avalanche airbags are self-deployable airbags that are stored in a special multi-use backpack. When a cord is pulled, a pressurized cartridge inflates the bag around the back of the user’s head. The main purpose of the airbag is to keep the user as close to the surface of the avalanche as possible. Other advantages are limited head protection, and possibly creating an air pocket for the victim in case of burial.
- Get a collapsible avalanche probe and a small shovel to help rescue others.
- Get an inclinometer; this would help you know if you’re in avalanche prone terrain – slopes steeper than 30 degrees.
- Get first aid training so you can recognize, and treat suffocation, hypothermia, traumatic injury, and shock.
Be careful
- Avoid high risk areas, such as slopes steeper than 30 degrees or areas under steep slopes.
- Tread cautiously: Recent avalanches in an area likely indicate an unstable snow base.
- Be vigilant when moving through a landscape.
- Constantly look up and around to assess your avalanche risk.
- Watch for cracking, and collapsing snow, or bizarre noises emanating from the snow. These could be clues of an unstable snow layer.
- Be cautious if it has snowed recently. Fresh snow could make a layer unstable, and avalanches more likely.
- Avoid areas with wind-blown snow.
- Be aware of prevailing, and forthcoming weather conditions: Rain, strong sun, or warming temperatures could increase avalanche risk.
- Interact with local communities. They might have their own time tested local warning system.
- Always wear a helmet to help reduce head injuries, and create air pockets.
- Always travel with a partner, and always traverse vulnerable stretches one at a time.
- Wear bright coloured clothes so that you are visible from a distance.
Respect mountains and avoid misadventure
- Never assume that a well-tracked slope would be avalanche safe.
- Don’t assume that you would be safe because you are on flat land. Be aware that slopes above you could slide when avalanche conditions are ripe.
- Never ignore warning signs like snowpack “whumps,” shooting cracks, or signs of avalanche activity on adjoining slopes.
- Don’t stop in an exposed area on a slope — your risk of getting caught in a fast-moving avalanche increases.
- Never let peer pressure influence your better judgment. If you are not comfortable with the risk being taken by your partners, let them know in no uncertain terms.
- Don’t get too separated from your group members. You should always hear, or see each other.
- When in a group, avoid travelling immediately above a partner. Doing so risks triggering an avalanche on the person lower on the slope.
- Don’t get so distracted in taking photos, or videos that you lose sight of avalanche risks. On a scale of one to five, most fatalities occur when danger levels are two (moderate) and three (considerable).
When caught in an avalanche
- Once you see an avalanche heading your way, do not try to outrun it.
- Immediately run perpendicular to the avalanche path to avoid getting caught up in the middle of it.
- In case the avalanche begins beneath your feet, act quickly and try to jump upslope, above the fracture line.
- If you are caught in an avalanche, push machinery, equipment, or heavy objects away from you to avoid injury.
- Keep your mouth closed, and your teeth clenched.
- If you are caught in an avalanche, fight with all your strength.
- Deploy your airbag. This would help you stay on the top of the sliding mass.
- Try to move yourself to the side of the avalanche.
- Try to keep your head above the surface as most victims die due to lack of oxygen.
- Grab something sturdy. Try to grab onto a tree branch, or sturdy rock to keep you steady, and rooted to one spot.
- Get off the snow slab. Aim 45 degrees down the slope, and move across the flow of snow. Grab trees or branches to pull you out of the slide.
- If you start moving downward with the avalanche, swim with your feet downhill to see where you are going.
- Swim. To prevent getting buried under mounds of snow, and debris, try to stay on the top of the avalanche by utilising all of your muscles, and swim with the current. And if you are struggling to stay afloat, violently thrash around so you don’t sink.
- Hold one arm up. Try to reach one arm up so that, if you do get buried, you can give your rescue team a literal hand in helping find you.
- Create room to breathe. Most avalanche-related fatalities are caused by asphyxiation. If you are caught in an avalanche, take your hands, and cup them over your mouth while you are still moving. This would create a small pocket of air for you to survive on for up to 30 minutes.
- You can try digging out some space around your face to get extra breathing room when the avalanche is over. Expanding your chest by filling your lungs with air would also achieve the same effect.
- Stay calm. You might understandably have the urge to panic, but it is of utmost importance that you don’t. If you panic, your breath would quicken, and you would fill what little space you have with too much carbon dioxide, thereby shortening that 30-minute survival window.
- Try to breathe as steadily as you can so that the rescue team has as much time as possible to come, and find you.
- When the avalanche slows, try to push yourself towards the surface, and make an air pocket in front of your face using one arm while pushing the other arm towards the surface.
- When the avalanche stops, begin to dig yourself out, if possible.
- Relax your breathing, particularly if you cannot dig yourself out.
- Stay calm, and shout only when a searcher is near.
Avalanche rescue
- Travelling with a partner provides the best chance of rescue.
- If you are watching your partner who is caught in an avalanche, try to track her, and note her last seen point. This is where you would begin the search, and this would narrow your search area.
- Evaluate the avalanche hazard before attempting a rescue.
- Turn your avalanche transceiver to receive incoming signals from the trapped partner, and use this tool to pinpoint an area for rescue.
- Don’t leave your buried partner in order to alert rescuers. You are the rescuer, and time is ticking away. Keep digging.
- Remember, time is critical: Chances of survival drop steeply after 18 minutes, to less than 30 percent.
- Use your avalanche probe at a 90-degree angle to the slope to locate the buried partner, and then start digging with your shovel.
- Be careful when digging to not stand on the snow pack over the buried partner, because that can eliminate her air pocket.