An off piste skier is in a very critical condition in Grenoble hospital after being caught by an avalanche at 3,200 meters altitude in the Orelle sector of Val Thorens. The 35 year old man from the Alpes Maritimes was with a group of about 12 skiers accompanied by a ski instructor. The man was buried for around 15 minutes. In Val d’Isere there were two seperate avalanches involving backcountry travellers but with no injury.

The avalanche risk was 2/5 (moderate) at the time of the incident. The bulletin had noted better stability with the refreeze with most of the slopes purged by the heavy rain.

The skiers were part of a Club-Med group. All were equipped with avalanche beacons. PisteHors.com readers may remember that a senior executive from Club-Med was killed by an avalanche last January at Valmorel. He was skiing with the director of piste security at the time.

http://pistehors.com/news/ski/comments/0886-md-of-club-med-avalanched-at-valmorel/

Interesting photos. Not a big crown wall but a lot of snow when it came to a halt (2 meters according to reports). Lets hope the skier makes it.

Henry Schniewind caught this incident today in the Pays Desert at Val d’Isere. A skier chances what to him looked like a suspect wind loaded gulch and sure enough, the thing goes.

http://www.getoffpiste.com/2010/01/my-entry-1.html

Sadly the skier is now reported as having died from his injuries. http://www.courchnet.com/whats_new_article.php?id_whats_new=6164&id_back=1

According to the Dauphine article, when the victim was dug out they were already cyanosed (blue faced) and suffered a cardio-respiratory arrest prior to being heli-lifted out to hospital.

This is inspite of being found in only 15mins suggesting perhaps a lack of air pocket?

http://www.ledauphine.com/avalanche-d-orelle-la-victime-est-decedee-@/index.jspz?article=242819&chaine=85

I assume this is somewhere like the combe Sans Nom under the Funitel de Grand Fond. It is one of those “banker” off pistes that the ski schools use. I’m told the avalanche broke on a S/W facing slope. Maybe on depth hoar surrounding the visible rocks?

According to the Dauphine Libere state prosecutor Patrick Quincy is shocked that a pro could take a group into a dangerous area. According to the DL the avalanche risk was 4 at the time (see below). He has launched a manslaughter investigation against the ClubMed instructor and says he’s determined to bring the investigation to a conclusion “aiming high”.

http://www.ledauphine.com/index.jspz?chaine=85&article=243051

Just to help M.Quincy here is the bulletin issued by Meteo France for the day in question, it seems the risk was actually 2 for Orelle. The detail is fairly reassuring too.

N73301211
BULLETIN D’ESTIMATION DU RISQUE D’AVALANCHE
de SAVOIE
valable hors des pistes balisées et ouvertes
POUR LE JEUDI 31 DÃCEMBRE 2009

ESTIMATION DES RISQUES JUSQU’A JEUDI SOIR :
VANOISE, HAUTE-MAURIENNE et MAURIENNE : RISQUE 2.

APERCU METEO JUSQU’A JEUDI SOIR :
Courant de Sud-Ouest perturbé et doux. Isotherme 0°C: 2100m. Vent à 3000 m : Sud-Ouest rafales 40 km/h.

CONDITIONS D’ENNEIGEMENT :
On est dans l’après Copenhague !! la pluie s’est abattu sur nos massifs jusqu’à 2300m puis 1800 mètres en donnant 5 à 10cm en haute-montagne. La fonte s’est donc accélérée en dessous. Pour les Bauges, c’est vraiment difficile… Une petite idée des températures ce matin : +5 degrés à 2000m et 0 vers 2500m, puis plus froid depuis…
Hauteur de neige sur des sites vierges :
à 1500 mètres : 15 à 30cm de neige pourri…
à 2000 mètres : 40 à 80cm de neige bien mouillée avec un peu fraîche dessus
à 2500 mètres : 90 à 160cm dont 15 à 30cm de fraîche plus sèche. 
Qualité du ski : “mélange entre le ski nautique et le water-polo” en dessous de 2000 mètres, neige idéale pour se faire un genou...à partir de 2300 mètres, ski plus agréable.

STABILITE DU MANTEAU NEIGEUX :
LEGERE AMELIORATION AVEC SEMBLANT DE REGEL

ACTIVITE AVALANCHEUSE : en baisse sur tous massifs. La purge naturelle s’est faite en Beaufortain, Maurienne, Tarentaise plutôt la veille ou cette nuit.

VANOISE, HAUTE-MAURIENNE ET MAURIENNE : Ces masssifs ont subi le redoux de plein fouet depuis 48h ou bien, les chutes de neige en altitude s’annoncent plus faibles (10/15cm). Des purges se sont déjà produites également et l’enneigement diminue en épaisseur. En dessous de 2300 mètres, le risque diminue nettement avec le tassement mais le regel reste insuffisant. Au dessus de 2300m, plaques de faibles épaisseurs (cassures 15/20cm) possibles. Même constant sinon, les sous-couches sont moins fragiles avec l’humidification et mieux enfouies. Départ de petites coulées naturelles limité.
-- Thierry Arnou

It really shocks me how proactive the French legislators seem at investigating and bringing to trial those placed in a position of responsibility over victims of avalanches.

This reminds me somewhat of the case involving a Mayor being held responsible for not predicting fatal avalanche (Montroc in 1999 perhaps??)

Although such a situation does not arise in the UK since we have few avalanche victims (this year excepted), I wonder how we would react

I wonder why it took a pro and all those people with avalanche beacons 15 minutes to find the person ...

firechick - 08 January 2010 12:07 AM

I wonder why it took a pro and all those people with avalanche beacons 15 minutes to find the person ...

Because actually organizing a search, managing the people involved, moving around in avalanche debris, probing and shoveling actually take time. Finding a transceiver near the surface in normal snow, which is what 95% do for practice, isn’t representative of a real burial.

Well in the practicing I’ve done with others (often people going for some sort of professional qualification for pisteur or guides or ski instructors) we’ve done multiples, deep burials etc. ... and did not take that long - in fact it could not or you would fail the exam. I just wonder if the instructors who take people off piste are practicing their skills often enough to keep them up to speed, that was my point. I also question taking such a large group of people off piste when (as is my perhaps wrong assumption but I still will toss it out here) no one except the instructor actually knows how to do a search effectively. What if more than 1 person was buried ... what if the instructor was buried ? It seems to me that rather than ban off piste skiing, legislators would be better to concentrate on ideas such as requiring off-piste skiers to take a single day course in tranceiver use, rescue procedures and avalanche awareness and to have some sort of identifying badge you would wear or card to carry to prove this course was taken ... perhaps that could even be done on day 1 of any ski lesson involving going off-piste. I know it could cut down on the number of off piste skiers, but that would not bother me at all. And it would give guides and instructors more business on their avalanche awareness courses.

firechick - 08 January 2010 05:40 PM

Well in the practicing I’ve done with others (often people going for some sort of professional qualification for pisteur or guides or ski instructors) we’ve done multiples, deep burials etc. ... and did not take that long - in fact it could not or you would fail the exam.

The test required for those exams aren’t always very representative, as they’re part of professional qualifications they have to have a level playing field and various national bodies make an effort to tune their test to the level of fellow countries in the international organization. One of the downsides of that is they’re more about measuring raw speed with a transceiver in a pretty controlled environment than they are about a real scenario. That shouldn’t be a problem in practice, for guides for example a speed test with a transceiver is part of a much broader training in winter safety. Much the same can be said for IML’s I think. For some of the ski exam’s I’m not really 100% sure. The reason I’m not sure is that guides and IML’s seem to have what I’d think was a realistic idea about how quickly they can recover someone while I’m not sure about some of the people I’ve come across who’ve done the ski one who seem to have what I think are unrealistic ideas about how quick they’re able to do it. That’s just a personal observation and it might purely be I’ve not met the right people who’ve done the ski one.

I don’t personally think that because I can find a couple of transceivers in a 100m odd square area from first signal in a few minutes means I can do the same in 100m wide, 200m long avalanche with 2m of debris from turning the transceiver to search.

From memory it is 2 beacons in under 5 minutes for guides. That is from start to touching the buried object with a probe. Normally on a flat slope.

I did an exercise with the SLF/Pisteurs in Davos about 10 years ago where we simulated a large off piste slide with 4 burials. We were a large team, about 20. I remember it took about a quarter of an hour just to climb up to the final victim before I got a signal. The Swiss, being professionals, actually had real people buried under the snow in little caves (to give the dogs something to work on).

This avalanche in the Grandes Rousses gives an idea of how quickly time can run out when you are confronted by a real incident

http://pistehors.com/backcountry/wiki/Avalanches/Avalanche-A-Race-Against-Time

You’ll be amazed at some of the errors people make even in the low stress of an exercise. In an exercise we did on a 25 degree slope the group headed up to the “victim” without their shovels and probes - so once they had located the victim someone had to do a round trip to fetch this gear. I’m sure in real incidents this happens a lot.

Anyway all this makes me thing that a real incident could take a long time. I attended a RTA last spring and it was utter chaos and panic until the firecrews arrived and all the first aid you learn is of limited use in those circumstances. The impression I get from some of the anglo-forums is that its “all the gear and no idea”.

I too was surprised that the instructor was with a group of 12… I would expects a group size of 4-6 but maybe there was an assistant with the group. I think a snowboarder with the group triggered the avalanche which then hit a skier lower down. This would seem to be a danger of having a large group with lots of people skiing at the same time.

I’ve done an exercise in debris like that pictured, it’s a completely different game from the normal beacon search scenarios. Even once you have located the victim shovelling that stuff is a big deal.

(Probably not a sensible first post on this excellent site, but here goes anyway.)

It is a pity this subject (equipment and abiltiy to use it) only appears after a tragedy.  Discussion is muted by respect for the dead.  And the subject quickly fades away.  But this can-of-worms does need to be properly sorted out.  And soon.

Every day groups of skiers go off piste with probe, shovel and transceiver, and are deemed sensible for carrying this equipment.  But in many (probably the majority of) cases only the Guide (if there is a guide) will know how to use the equipment.  This is clearly crazy.

30 years ago it was similar in hospitals.  The equipment for resuscitation was available, but few people knew how to use it. Further, the “team” was made up of disparate people who never worked together until they met for a cardiac arrest.  The result was often chaos and poor outcome for the patient.  This all changed in 1981 (Resuscition Council UK).  Now all doctors and nurses have to have documented training that is updated at least annually.

I propose it should be similar for off-piste skiers: that just owning a probe, shovel and transceiver is not adequate.  Unless you are trained in their use, and that training is redone on an annual basis, then you are not adequately equipped, and any insurance is invalid.

I suspect I may get a bit of flak for this suggestion.  There was similar flak (actually, more like outrage) back in 1981 when it was suggested that not every doctor was inherently expert at cardio-pulmonary resuscitation.