Two people were rescued from tree wells at the Mt. Baker Ski Area over the weekend in separate incidents. Both people were saved before any serious injuries, according to President and CEO Gwyn Howat.
Both rescues took place around Chair 6 in expert areas on Saturday in what Howat described as textbook rescue responses of people in danger of snow immersion suffocation, a condition when skiers or snowboarders fall, usually headfirst, into a tree well or deep loose snow and suffocate.
According to a deep snow safety website created by Howat and her team regarding the dangers of snow immersion suffocation, 90% of people involved in tree well hazard research experiments could not rescue themselves. People can suffocate in deep snow as quickly as a person can drown in water…