A study of avalanche fatalities suggests the tumbling violence of being caught up in a snow slide is more lethal than previously believed.
The study was published Thursday in the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) Journal. The lead author and mountain guide, Dr. Jeff Boyd, said most trauma victims hit trees.
The 21-year study of 204 avalanche deaths showed severe trauma was responsible for 24 per cent of the deaths in Western Canada, while massive injury and asphyxia combined to a further 13 per cent of deaths.
"Young skiers and snowboarders were over-represented," Boyd said of the 204 deaths examined in the study.
"The Canadian Avalanche Centre should continue to focus on education of this high-risk group, and social science research is essential to determine effective education strategies."
John Kelly of the Canadian Avalanche Centre says that's exactly what they're doing. He says there are already programs in place, the most significant of which are two that target elementary and high school students.
Kelly says 29 per cent of the fatalities mentioned in the study are young people between the ages of 20 and 29. The centre supports a program targeting Grade 4 to Grade 6 students in Revelstoke, Golden and B.C.'s Interior on how to avoid avalanches. Programs for this young target group focus on the importance of staying in bounds.
Students in grades seven to nine use a Parks Canada program based out of Bow-Valley in Alberta - a region that makes up 20 to 30 per cent of the back country.
Kelly says the long-term average for avalanche related fatalities in Canada are 13.5 per year, but this year there have been 16 in Alberta and B.C. alone - including an accident in Fernie that killed eight people.
Kelly adds the average number of avalanche fatalities over the last 10 years have been steady, he says.
According to the study, suffocation alone is blamed for 75 per cent of the deaths -- but that's lower than European studies showing asphyxia caused 95 per cent of all avalanche deaths.
Dr. Hermann Brugger of the Innsbruck Medical University in Austria said the probability of survival decreases from 91 per cent after 18 minutes of burial to 34 per cent after 35 minutes.
With files from The Canadian Press
