Entombed by avalanche, snowmobiler survives because of quick-acting companiions

By Drew Foster | Tri-city Herald • Published February 28, 2009

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All it took was 60 seconds.

Buried in an ice-packed coffin, Scott Ashton struggled to control his breathing. Unable to move, he concentrated on each gasp for air.

"I couldn't catch my breath," the Pasco man said Friday. "I knew I needed to slow my breathing, but I couldn't. It was like someone was sitting on my chest."

Trapped, upside down, unable to move and breathing out of control, Ashton faded out of consciousness in about a minute.

With a single foot sticking out of the snow, his brothers and friends were able to find him and start digging.

Every minute counted.

Ashton, a 33-year-old financial adviser, spent nearly 10 minutes buried in snow after being swallowed by a snowmobile-triggered avalanche in Idaho earlier this week. Unconscious, his colleagues dug him out and breathed life back into him.

"If they hadn't been prepared, I wouldn't have made it," he said.

Ashton was snowmobiling with four friends and three brothers Tuesday in Featherville, Idaho. After hours spent traversing Idaho's snow-blanketed backcountry, the crew began climbing a hill in the afternoon. For about 15 minutes, Ashton said, they took turns dashing toward its pinnacle.

"We just came to this one particular spot and didn't think too much of it," Ashton said. "I didn't think it was too bad."

He said conditions were favorable — no drastic temperature changes, not too much fresh, unsettled snow — so he decided to climb and followed the hill's ridgeline. He noticed it was wind-loaded, an area where snow blew over the hill's crest, accumulating in unstable piles.

"You want to stay away from areas where wind blows the snow," said his brother, Tony Ashton of Othello.

As his sibling rode, Tony said he watched the snow crumble behind Scott, saw the fast-moving avalanche envelope his brother. The rushing snow settled in two areas, one near the top of the hill, the other toward the bottom where Tony and the others — Joel Ashton of Rexburg, Idaho; Stephen Ashton of Moses Lake; Dan Hatch and Sam Harker of Pasco; and Jim Hayhurst and Mike Cercheck of Pine, Idaho — watched.

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