Skier Rescued After 3 Days Trapped Inside Snowbound Hut: 'I Thought I Would Die'
Aurélie Dutertre, 46, sought refuge in a small wooden hut on Sept Laux mountain in the French Alps after a snowstorm surprised her while she was on a solo ski run last week
A French mountaineer who was stranded in the Alps for three days and four nights is speaking out about her experience.
Aurélie Dutertre, 46, sought refuge in a small wooden hut on Sept Laux mountain after a snowstorm surprised her while she was on a solo ski run, The Times reports. After falling asleep, the storm had dumped so much snow that she couldn't get out.
"The wind had pushed a huge mass of snow in front of the door," she told RTL radio and Le Parisien according to The Times. "I told myself, 'It's not possible. You're not going to stay trapped like a rat.'"
Dutertre, who is a doctor on the French national climbing team, knew she would have to rely on her survival skills to weather the storm.
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"There must have been at least 1.5 meters (almost 5 feet) of snow in front of the door," she said. "It started to be worrying. All my clothes were soaked. I was very cold. I put my survival blanket on the ground to try to keep away the cold . . . I was frozen. I was crying with despair. I said to myself, 'I'm going to die here.'"
"It was like being buried under an avalanche," she added. "You tell yourself you're going to die but you don't know how much time it's going to take . . . I screamed blue murder, like a dog. I didn't have light. The batteries from my lamp were flat."
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The mother revealed she was encouraged to persevere as she began to think about surviving the experience for her family.
"A book of hope" she had with her, called La Vie Devant Soi (The Life Before Us) by Romain Gary, also served as inspiration, she said.
Related:15-Year-Old Skiers Rescued After Being Trapped 'Chest-Deep' in Mass. Snow for 3 Hours
After her partner called authorities to report that she was missing on Friday, a police helicopter began to search for Dutertre.
On Sunday, as the helicopter made its second pass around the area, rescuers spotted the metallic gleam from her emergency blanket, shimmering in the sun.
"When I heard the chopper coming back, I cut a piece off the end of my survival blanket and managed to squeeze it through a crack at the top of the door and it blew in the wind. That's what saved me," she said.
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"When they arrived, I couldn't believe it," she added. "I started crying hard. I hadn't cried like that since I was a little girl. They dug and dug. There was two meters (over 6 feet) of snow in front of the door."
Dutertre was later treated at a hospital for hypothermia, per The Times.
Among her rescuers were the familiar faces of two friends who joined the search. She recalled how "one of them said, 'We're here. Aurélie, I'm so happy to see you. I was giving up hope.'"
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