VICTORIA - A young snowboarder is recovering from a harrowing ordeal after spending six hours buried by an avalanche near a Vancouver Island ski resort.
The 14-year-old was among a group of five young boarders who went out of bounds at the Mount Washington resort near Courtenay late Monday morning.
Four of the teens returned to the in-bounds area and realized their friend wasn't with them, but waited until 3:30 p.m. to report him missing.
A search began immediately and the boy was found alive two hours later buried beneath the snow and jammed up against the trunk of a tree.
Resort spokeswoman Karen Bonnell says if the teen had not been stopped by the tree he would have been carried over a nearby cliff.
She says the young boarder is expected to recover but has been airlifted to hospital in Vancouver, suffering from hypothermia and possibly two broken legs.
