A British father, Gillon Campbell, raced against time to rescue his son after he was buried in snow for 30 minutes while skiing in the French Alps. Fox Campbell, 11, fell into a hole while he was skiing off-piste and a small avalanche followed him in, trapping him underneath the snow.
As soon as Gillon realised his son was missing, he retraced his steps, turned on a tracker and managed to find him buried deep in the snow, after noticing the snow in this area looked unusual.
'I just dug like everything in the world mattered to me,' Gillon says, in a video he has since shared of the incident in the hope that it will warn other skiers about the dangers of going off-piste.
I just dug like everything in the world mattered to me
'That was a really, really scary moment. I mean, I've never been so scared. I dug and I found his head one and a half metres under the snow and I cleared his head and he talked to me,’ he adds.
Luckily, Fox and Gillon were both wearing trackers so Gillon was able to quickly find his son.
‘I won’t forget the moment I got to hold him, he was so cold but he was alive and he was fine.’
Apart from feeling cold, Fox escaped the ordeal with no injuries and is seen crying 'thank you' in the moving helmet camera video as his father rescued him. The footage shows the accident took place extremely quickly - proving how unpredictable unfamiliar terrain can be when skiing off-piste.
This happened last December and Gillon chose to share this story now to raise awareness about the importance of wearing the right equipment on the slopes. It ends with the warning: ‘Skiing even close to the piste is still off-piste, beware of a false sense of security, a transceiver, shovel and probe are essential, but do not prevent an avalanche, reduce the risk, get trained (or engage a mountain professional)’