After the avalanche: rescue gone wrong

Outside/In

NHPR

Society & Culture, Documentary, Natural Sciences, Nature, Science

4.7 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 31 August 2023

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On a bluebird day, in April of 2019, Snow Ranger Frank Carus set out to investigate a reported avalanche in the backcountry of Mt. Washington. He found a lone skier, buried several feet under the snow. He was severely hypothermic but alive. Wilderness EMTs can work for decades and never encounter this particular situation. And what happened next was an attempted rescue that people in Northern New England are still learning from. What happens when a rescue goes wrong? And how do first responders cope when an opportunity to save someone’s life slips through their fingers? Editor’s Note: This episode first aired in May of 2022, and was later honored with a National Edward R. Murrow Award for News Documentary. Featuring: Denise Butler, Frank Carus, Jeff Fongemie, Nicholas Weinberg SUPPORT Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. Talk to us! Follow Outside/In on Instagram and Twitter, or discuss episodes in our private listener group on Facebook. Submit a question to our Outside/Inbox. We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837). LINKS Learn more about avalanche safety here. Read the Wilderness Medical Society Journal article about this incident here. CREDITS Host: Nate Hegyi Reported and produced by: Jessica Hunt Mixer: Taylor Quimby Editing by Taylor Quimby and Nate Hegyi, with help and feedback from Rebecca Lavoie, Justine Paradis, Felix Poon, Erika Janik, Sam Evans-Brown, Jimmy Gutierrez, and Christina Philips. Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer Special Thanks to: Matt Dustin, Ty Gagne, Frank Hubbell, and Andrew Parrella. Music for this episode by Blue Dot Sessions. Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, you're listening outside in, I'm Nate Hegey, and we have some pretty cool news.
0:10.0	This summer we won a national award, a Murrow, for one of our episodes that aired last
0:15.0	year.
0:16.0	Now, for those of you who don't know, the award is named after the famous broadcaster,
0:19.8	Edward R. Murrow.
0:20.8	It's been around for more than 50 years, and it's given out annually to some of the best
0:25.7	work produced by Radio and TV stations.
0:28.2	It's kind of like an Emmy.
0:31.2	We won best news documentary for our episode after the avalanche.
0:36.0	It was produced by Jessica Hunt, who recently left the show this summer, but she is a rad
0:40.8	person to work with, and she has a great eye for solid stories, including this one.
0:46.6	So in honor of Jessica and the Murrow award we won, we are going to replay after the avalanche,
0:51.7	which first aired last May.
0:54.0	We are really proud of it, and if you haven't heard it, it's worth a listen.
1:05.0	Quick heads up.
1:09.4	This is a pretty emotionally intense story, I just thought you should know in advance.
1:14.8	On April 11th, 2019, the weather was what backcountry skiers call a bluebird day.
1:21.1	The sky was piercing blue, the snow was sparkling, and the sun was warm.
1:25.8	It was a sunny day, clear, the kind of day that brings people out to recreate.
1:31.9	And Frank Karris was investigating a possible avalanche.
1:48.0	You could see what's called a crown line, it's a cut across the snow, where everything
1:51.4	underneath it has fractured and tumbled down the slope.
	...

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