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Video of a skier saving the life of a snowboarder is now going viral online. The unreal clip shows a man desperately digging out the boarder, who was buried headfirst in the snow.
After spotting only a snowboard and a pair of feet while skiing down a mountainside in Washington, the skier sprang into action. He dug with both his hands and a shovel to get the man to safety.
Francis Zuber is the skier’s name, and he captured the entire scene in a five minute video on his headcam. That clip is now making national headlines as it circulates the internet and social media.
The incident took place on Mt. Baker in Northwest Washington state in March. The man buried under the snow was apparently trapped in a tree well.
A tree well is “the space around a tree in which less snow accumulates than in the rest of the area. It creates a void or area of loose snow below the tree, posing danger for people who fall into them.”
As Zuber passes by the snowboard, he senses that there’s someone underneath. His heroics from that point on are shown below.
“You alright? You okay,” Zuber asks in hopes of getting some sort of response. After realizing that the snowboarder was still breathing, he frantically starts digging in order to save his life.
That digging goes on for minutes before he finally uncovers the boarder’s face. “Can you breath?” Zuber asks to which the man replies, “Yeah… I’m good.”
At that point, he takes a break to catch his breath before using a shovel to do the rest of the work.
The man on the snowboard is Ian Steger, who got separated from friends ahead of him, apparently frequents the area often. Unfortunately, his radio signal got disconnected from the rest of his crew, and they were unable to locate him.
“I was gonna die on my own mountain in an area I’ve ridden hundreds of times.”
Social media erupted with reaction after seeing the heroic clip. Here’s what everyone was saying.
One person wrote, “This man is a HERO! Francis Zuber’s headcam shows him rescuing a snowboarder who was buried head down in deep powder at Mt. Baker, Washington! Luckily, he spotted him as he almost passed him.”
Another follower commented, “This video is unreal. Skier on the mountain randomly sees a snowboarder buried face down in the snow, stops, digs him out, saves his life. Wow.”
What an awesome moment.