PARK CITY — A Park City business owner is grateful his dog is alive after a skiing accident sent him rushing to the vet.
Christian Schauf and Barron, a Swiss mountain dog, love spending time outdoors, hiking, snowmobiling, and skiing.
“We spend time in the back country, with the skis and we go out, it’s his favorite thing,” said Schauf.
“Given that there’s been a lot of avalanches we haven’t gone for a while, so he was pretty excited."
Christian and several friends were hiking up peak 10420 in Deer Valley Saturday. Two of his friends were skiing down from the peak as Christian and Barron waited just below.
“One of the skiers fell and he went to check on her, another skier came over, just not seeing [Barron] and they collided,” said Schauf.
The collision itself was pretty mild, but the skis cut Barron’s front leg and that’s when Christian said he knew he needed to act fast.
“He kind of yelled and ran towards me, and about three steps in, blood just started spraying and that’s when I got pretty concerned because we were a long ways from the vet,” said Schauf.
Luckily, Christian owns an outdoor emergency survival kit company called Uncharted Supply Company and had a triage kit with him.
“I was able to make kind of a makeshift tourniquet out of what I had, I knew that was going to be the most important thing, I couldn’t tell, his wrist was kind of limp so I couldn’t tell if he cut tendons or not, it didn’t really matter at that point right I just needed to get him down,” said Schauf.
Christian then put Barron on his shoulders, skied down to his snowmobile, raced to his truck and got Barron to the vet clinic.
“When we got there to the vet, you know they got him sedated, they put a tourniquet on him, a real one and they said he probably had a couple minutes left before it was too late,” said Schauf.
Christian says this accident is a good reminder of how anything can happen at any time.
“Everything we did mattered, you never know how close you are to the edge, you know it was just one of those things,” said Schauf.
Showing the importance of being prepared for any situation.
“It’s important to think ahead and to be prepared, I know that sounds a little cliché but I live and die by it and I really believe in it,” said Schauf.
Being prepared is what saved Barron’s life, and today he’s on the mend, ready to get back on the mountain once he’s fully healed.
“If it was up to him, he’d be back up there today,” said Schauf.
Christian says he’s happy to have Barron still by his side and they’ll be back to skiing in the next few weeks.
