Quarter 3 Post 1- Avalanche.

De Le Rue, Xavier. "Backcountry Basics- Live To Tell". Transworld Snowboarding January 2009: unknown-unknown.
(i dont know the starting and ending pages cuz its my brothers magazine and he took it to his house before i did the MLA citation)

Last year in Switzerland Xavier De Le Rue was filming with Standard Snowboard Films. He was riding on a mountain in the backcountry on snow that he just assumed was safe to ride. When he was on the upper section of his run he noticed the snow starting to crack but that didn't bother him. In those situations he just rides fast and figures he'll get out safe. But as he kept going the snow cracked more and more until it was just one giant avalanche. Xavier was wearing a special ABS backpack with airbags that you can deploy in an avalanche. He pulled the release cord on the backpack and the airbags deployed. He slid down the mountain over a mile. The airbags kept Xavier ontop of the 6 meter deep snow and although he was unconscious when he was found they saved his life. I think that if you're going to be snowboarding or skiing or hiking or doing anything in the backcountry during the winter you should be wearing one of these backpacks. This avalanche easily could have killed Xavier but because of the bag he only suffered from a torn ligament in his knee, some of the blood vessels in his eyes popped from the pressure, and snow was caught in his mouth and nose causing him to go unconscious, but thats a lot better than being dead.