Buried alive, avalanche survivors thought the worst before rescue

Prone on his back under 3 feet of snow, with an ever thinning stream of air passing through the tiny hole he'd carved out, Derek Lerch thought he and his three friends faced certain death buried under a Sierra Nevada avalanche.

So for five hours, he hollered for his life.

At first, his friend Harry Eichelberger, buried nearby and sharing the oxygen that drifted into the tight space, thought someone would come along to rescue them.

But as dusk turned to dark, the tiny air pocket began to fail and doubt crept upon him.

"Dying wasn't a burden after a while," Eichelberger recalled Sunday. "It seemed easier than being down there, unable to see anything, not being able to breathe, shivering."

But the 21-year-old Chicagoan decided to muster his last strength to climb through the snow on top of him.

"He clawed little by little bit with his fingers," Lerch said, his nose red with cold. "It wasn't easy, but he made it. Harry was the hero. He was the one who made it out. If he didn't, we all would still be there."

Eichelberger summoned help at a nearby cabin Saturday night, 4 1/2 hours after the avalanche occurred near Donner Pass and ultimately killed one of the four friends.

University of California, Berkeley student Malcolm Russell Hart, 21, of Dover, N.H., died of cardiac arrest after he and the survivors were rescued during a storm that dumped 2 feet of snow on the area.

Lerch and Eichelberger, also UC Berkeley students, and Marisa Nelson, 20, of Chico, were released Sunday from Tahoe Forest Hospital in Truckee after being treated for hypothermia. Nelson's and Hart's temperatures had dropped to under 80 degrees, Lerch said.

The four were hiking near Lake Mary, 35 miles west of Reno, Nev., when a cornice on a small hill collapsed and buried them in a snow slide.

Although Lerch and Eichelberger were buried close enough to each other that they could talk, the two had no contact during the ordeal with their friends, who were buried in up to 6 feet of snow.

"We thought the other two were dead for sure because we couldn't hear them," said Lerch, 21, of Chico. "The worst part is when I realized I couldn't get out. The snow was just too heavy. I was certain I would die. I screamed for help all night long.

"I was thinking a lot of different things under there," Lerch added. "Obviously, it was very cold and all I wanted was to get out. ... I didn't cry until I found out my friend died."

About 15 members of a Dartmouth College alumni group staying in the nearby cabin responded to Eichelberger's pleas for help. Wearing headlamps and using rakes, brooms and mops as probes, they dug out the other three within 30 minutes.

A glove sticking out of the snow led them to Lerch. The other two were located a short time later with the help of the makeshift probes.

Bela Vadasz, director of the Alpine Skills International center located within a quarter mile of the avalanche, credited their survival to good health and sufficient air passages.

But he said their survival was a miracle.

Avalanche victims stand a less than 50 percent chance of survival after 10 minutes of burial, he said. The group was buried for more than four hours.

"For three people to be buried that long and to survive, that's astonishing," Vadasz said. "What occurred here is almost unheard of. This will go down internationally as a phenomenal story of survival."

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