Snowmobiler Captures Avalanche Survival on Camera
Curtis Johnson was nearly killed when he was swallowed up by snow.
— -- The terrifying moment a snowmobiler was completely swallowed up by an avalanche was captured on camera thanks to a GoPro camera mounted on the snowmobiler’s helmet.
Snowmobiler Curtis Johnson posted a video to YouTube March 28 showing how the near-fatal incident unfolded near Blue Lake in British Columbia, Canada.
For two minutes, the video shows nothing but a blinding white as Johnson is buried beneath nearly 3 feet of snow.
Finally, you see the snow moved back and Johnson’s friends come into view, his friends who had been using their hands and shovels to try to free him.
A fellow snowmobile enthusiast, Steve Wheeler, who was not involved in the incident, says time must have been moving slowly for Johnson.
"That two minutes must have felt like two hours,” Wheeler, the owner of No Limits Motorsports in Squamish, British Columbia, told CTV News.
“Everyone in the back country should have a shovel and a beacon,” Wheeler said.
In Wyoming two months ago, a similar incident was captured on camera when Sam Robinson was snowmobiling and triggered an avalanche that almost took his life.
“It’s always fun to push the extreme for people like me,” Robinson said, “but it’s scary when the extreme pushes back.”