Avalanche survivor injured but undeterred
‘Can’t wait to get back on my board,’ after rescue in Whistler backcountry
American snowboarder Brock Crouch is lucky to be alive after being buried by an avalanche near Whistler earlier this week.
The 18-year-old was filming a snowboarding video for Absinthe Films with three other experienced riders in the Whistler backcountry on April 22 when a cornice — a mass of hardened snow that bends over a ridge to form a ledge — broke away beneath his feet and swept him off an 80-foot cliff.
Crouch, a member of the U.S. snowboarding pro slopestyle team and the U.S. surfing team that won gold at the ISA World Junior Surfing Championships in Japan last September, detailed the harrowing experience of being “caught in a pretty big avalanche” in an Instagram post on Thursday.
“I was standing at the top of a ridge with Cam (Fitzpatrick, a fellow snowboarder) when the cornice broke under me and pulled me backwards into a slide,” he wrote. “It took me through about 1000 feet and over several rock bands before I ended up at the bottom, buried with no oxygen for almost five minutes.”
Fortunately for Crouch, his friends did not abandon him, making their way down to where Crouch was buried with the help of the helicopter pilot that had brought them to the mountain. When the pilot spotted the tip of Crouch’s snowboard, the snowboarder’s friends rushed to the area and began to dig.
“When we were going down, in the back of our mind you are thinking, ‘ Wow, we might be pulling out our dead friend,’” John Jackson, another snowboarder with the group, told the New York Times.
Crouch was injured, but alive. The snowboarders found him curled up underneath about two feet of snow, blue but responsive. He was taken to Vancouver General Hospital, where he spent the week being treated for a number of injuries.
“I tore my pancreas, knocked out five teeth, got a “periorbital hematoma ( basically closed up my right eye) and fractured my L2 L3 and my T12 vertebrae,” Crouch said. “Initially, I didn’t know what to expect because we didn’t know how serious my spine and pancreas injuries were. Last night, we got some final results from the doctors and somehow by the grace of God I don’t need any surgery and I get to leave here in the next few days since there was no spine or nerve damage.”
Crouch was released from hospital on Friday, and like a true extreme athlete, he remains pas- sionate about the sport that nearly killed him.
“I love snowboarding more today than I ever have and I can’t wait to get back on my board and shred with everyone again,” he wrote.