U.S. Teen Survives 48 Hours Lost In Swiss Alps

In what is considered to be nothing short of a miracle, a 19-year-old American student was found alive in the Swiss Alps after disappearing while skiing over the weekend. The teen is suffering from hypothermia, but is alive, police report to MSN.

That search continued for more than 48 hours for the teen who decided to leave the prepared slopes on Sunday for an opportunity to “free-ride” back to the Diablerets resort in southern Switzerland. That is when things began to go wrong for the young man.

The teen told police that he had lost his bearings on his way down the mountain. He also experienced the misfortune of breaking one of his bindings.

As the teen tried to continue his way back to the resort on one ski, he fell into a stream. By this time, he was exhausted and completely soaked.

The student from EPFL, Switzerland’s top technical school, revealed to Yahoo! Sports his plan for finding his way back to the resort.

“I started following the supports for the chair-lift… and it started to snow pretty hard, and I just ended up in this ravine.”

Freezing and lost, it wasn’t long before a heavy snow storm set in, trapping him under mounds of snow for the next two days.

Staying warm was his ultimate goal at that point.

“I tried to keep moving and tried to stay warm,” he said, adding that on Monday night he had built a small embankment and slept for about six hours.

The teen revealed that at one point he had to cross a pond, in which the water reached up to his neck.

Once he reached a steep waterfall, he could go no further. The student made his way up the bank of the ravine and began to yell for help, as per Yahoo! Sports.

“I probably spent four to five hours just sitting there yelling.”

It was on Tuesday afternoon that a couple walking down a nearby road heard the teen yelling for help.

“Then I knew I was going to get out.”

Police reported to MSN, “The man was found conscious, in a state of hypothermia and exhaustion, and stuck waist-deep in the thick blanket of snow.”

His survival was miraculous considering the police say he is lucky to be alive since other than clothing, he was not prepared to ski off-piste. Police reveal that he “had no working means of communication and none of the vital material needed when skiing off-piste, such as shovels and sensors.”

The student was taken by helicopter to a nearby hospital for treatment.

[Photo Credit: Discovery.com]