ALTA, Utah — A 9-year-old boy is in stable condition after being buried in a roof avalanche in the town of Alta on Wednesday.
The roof slide occurred at a condominium and an Alta Marshal's Office deputy was on the scene within two minutes to begin searching for the child.
"The deputy was able to locate the person under the snow using the avalanche probe and the team immediately began extracting them from the snow when they got the person out of the snow," said Mike Morey, Alta's Town Marshal.
Morey says they were able to locate and recover the boy, with the help of the UDOT Avalanche Forecasting team, within the first four minutes of getting the call.
"What does occur when you're buried under the snow is your airway is severely compromised," said Morey.
When the unidentified boy was located, he was in a semi-conscious condition and transported via LifeFlight helicopter to Primary Children's Hospital.
The Unified Police Department Canyon Patrol, Unified Fire Authority, and the Alta Ski Patrol were also involved in the rescue.
"Snow moving around an everyday part of life in Little Cottonwood Canyon, an accident like this is just exceedingly rare," said Morey. "There are always efforts underway to mitigate snowfall, deal with the amount that may be accumulating on the structure, you know, to guard against collapsing issues, blocking of ventilation events and for carbon monoxide poisoning."
In this case, Morey says they are extremely grateful they were able to get the boy out quickly and safely.
"You had a, what I would call an extremely positive outcome," said Morey.
Just last week, the Utah Avalanche Center warned residents and visitors of possible slides due to the large amounts of snow that have accumulated on rooftops. With warmer temperatures in the area over the last week, conditions exist for snow to quickly melt.
The current condition of the boy is unknown.
The Marshal's Office says they are continuing to investigate the circumstances of this incident, but, believe it to be accidental in nature.
