KREM.com
Posted on February 20, 2012 at 5:15 PM
Updated yesterday at 5:28 PM
SANDPOINT, Idaho—The Airbag System backpack is a tool used like a life preserver during an avalanche. The airbag can help keep a skier or snowboarder at the surface of an avalanche, but it must be deployed at the beginning of the avalanche slide.
Four people were swept up in an avalanche at Steven’s Pass on Sunday. The lone survivor, Elyse Saugstad, credits an Airbag System backpack with saving her life.
Experts at the Idaho Panhandle Avalanche Center say the backpack shows the principles of physics at work. The larger you are the more likely you’ll stay at the surface, while smaller particles are pushed to the bottom of the avalanche debris.
When an avalanche occurs, suffocation becomes a huge concern. Chances of survival increase drastically if a person is found near the top of the debris.
In addition to the bag, skiers and snowboarders should also have a shovel, avalanche beacon and probe.
Airbag Backpacks cost around $400.
For more avalanche information for the Idaho Panhandle click here or you can call the Idaho Panhandle Avalanche Advisory hotline at 208-765-7323.
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