FAMILY BURIED UNDER AVALANCHE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17834, 30 April 1926, Page 4

FAMILY BURIED UNDER AVALANCHE.

RESCUED AFTER THIRTY-SEVEN DAYS, WASTED TO SKELTONS; LITTLE BOY DIES.

The recent avalanche in Utah, which lulled a number of villagers and left

others unaccounted for. affords a reminder. says the “ New York HeraldTribune." of the fact that persons buried under nothing but snow if they are not crushed by the first impact are not necessarily dead. If the avalanche also brings down and covers them with a layer of earth and stones, their case is indeed desperate. Such a slide is. of course, more apt to crush their houses, and when they .are covered it shuts off their air supply. Snow embodies in its make-up large quantities of air the purest of air- - and a living animal completely cov-

ered by a drift can breathe as if outdoors Neither will a person so covered be apt to freeze to death if he is warmly dad. for. owing to the little cushions of air between the snow particles. burial under snow is quite a different matter from being encased in a block of ice.

Furthermore, the blanket of snow | protects one from cutting blasts of j wind, so that a person hidden in a i snowdrift might, if warmly clad, be 1 tolerably comfortable, even during blizzards such as have raged in New York within the last two or three ' weeks. People Buried and Rescued. Partridges often burrow into snow- | drifts in severe weather to protect j themselves from the co’d. and remain there for days on end; and Far North- i ern sled dogs when on the trail fre- 1 quentlv lie down at night during a ! snowstorm and by morning are so com- ‘ pletely hidden by drifts that it is hard to tell where they are. There have been a number of cases recorded of persons who were buried bv snow avalanches in mountainous countries and recovered alive after hours or days of entombment. One of the most remarkable in history occurred on the Italian s’ope of the Cottian Alps. On March ID. 1755. a small cluster of houses called Rcrgemotetto, in the upper valley of the river Stura. | was overwhelmed by an avalanche. All ; the inhabitants were within doors save | one. man. Joseph Rochia. and his son. a lad* of fifteen, and these, being at j some distance from the houses, escaped. 1 Twenty-two persons in all were covered I by the snow. Rochia fainted upon seeing the destruction of his home, but five days j later having to some extent recovered 1 his strength, he and two of his wife’s | brothers climbed up on the drift to I see if they could determine where his house had stood. They made many openings in the snow, but could not | locate the place. Rescued After 37 Days. The month of April proving warm I and the snow beginning to soften, Rochia redoubled his efforts to save some of his effects and to find the bodies of his family so that he might bury them. He made now openings and threw in earth to melt the snow.

which on April 2-1 was greatly diminished. That day he broke through an immense flake of ice. thrust down a long pole and touched the ground under the snow. That night his wife’s brother dreamed that his sister was still alive, and. heartened hv this omen, they went to work furiously next morning. After a time the men reached the ruins of the house, which was completely crushed, but thev could find no bodies in it. They then dug toward the stable, which was about 250 ft distant. and to their astonishment heard a cry of “Help!" They laboured at top speed until they made an opening large enough for a man's body, and through this one of them crawled and found in the ruins of the stable Rochia’s wife, forty-five years old. her sister, thirty-five, and a daughter, about thirteen. Wasted Almost to Skeletons. The three people were lifted out. being too weak to aid themselves, and carried to a neighbour's house. They were wasted almost to skeletons and were greatly exhausted. Some days afterward the village intendant went to see them and heard their story. The wife was then unable to walk, though the other woman and the girl were in better condition. They to'd the intendant that on the morning of the avalanche they were all in the stable, as was Rochia's youngest son. a boy of six The wife had just stepped outside when she saw the gieat mass coming. She ran back inside, shut the door, and within tfvo minutes more the stable had been over- j whelmed. A portion of it seemed to | be giving way. and they got into a hay rack or manger, which fortunately was J the only corner of the stable not i crushed. There also were in the-* •table a donke> . six goats and five or j aix fowls. The donkey and four of ! the goats were killed. The first concern of the imprisoned women was for food. The sister had fifteen chestnuts in her pocket--the onlv solid food available. The two live goats which were right at their elbows the whole partv being jammed into a space not more than 7ft square were their salvation. In the loft, whose floor had been pressed down almost on their heads, were hav and fodder This they pulled down for the goats, and when they became too weak to do this the goats climbed tip on «>ne of the women's shoulders and helped themselves. They had only the dimmest possible light at times and could not be. certain as to the passage of time. Death of Mrs Rochia's Son. The three women seemed to be sustained tolerably well by the goats' milk, but within a short time the mother thought it was about a week after their imprisonment the boy was taken ill, and after lingering for about as much

longer he died. As time went on the goats' milk diminished and starvation threatened thorn. The cold water trickling down from the melting snow added to their misery. The only space left to them was the manger, about three and a half feet broad, where they crouched ! upon a bed of hay. The mother in- ■ sisted that she did not sleep at all durj ing all their five weeks of confinement, ■ but the sister and daughter said that 1 they frequently had long naps. When the long imprisoned people ; were, taken out they were stiffened I bv their long crouching in a cramped 1 position that it was feared they would never recover the use of their muscles i again. The particulars were obtained ; and attested in much greater detail than given here by the intendant authi orised to take the examination, in May. ' 1735. and have been regarded as auth- ! cntic. A Care in England. I A remarkable case of the burial of a i single person under snow was that ot ; Mis Elizabeth Woodcock, in England, in 1799. The facts in this case were attested by a number of reputable people. Oil Saturday. February 2 of | that year. Mrs Woodcock, then forty--1 two years old. rode on horseback in ! the morning from her home at Imping* j ton to Cambridge, the distance being ! about four miles. She started home in late afternoon through a severe snowi storm, which was driving before a 1 north-east wind. ! When about hall a mile fronv her : home, between (» and 7 p.m.. Mrs Woodcock's horse took fright at something and shied. She was afraid he was going to back into a deep ditch and hastily dismounted. The deepest ditches were filled with snow and drifts were piling against banks and hedges. The horse, still obstreperous, broke away from Mrs Woodcock and rati some distance, heading away from home. She. encumbered by a heavy basket, followed the animal until she was tired and cold. In the pursuit she lost one of her shoes in the snow 1 and could not find it. Finally she caught the horse, but by that time she 1 was so fatigued anti her foot was so beI numbed that she could neither mount l to the saddle nor walk home. She sank down where she was. letting go the bridle and saying to the horse: ••Tinker. 1 am too tired; you must go home ! without me; Lord have mercy upon mo! t What will become of me?’’ Covered by the Snow, j Mrs Woodcock was then beside a dense thicket, and tVie wind, swirling I around it. began piling snow oxer her. j It accumulated so rapidly that by the I time she heard Chesterton village j church bell, two miles off. ring at S ! o’clock, she was completely covered. She had her shoeless foot protected underneath her, but it had already been frozen. Her body was heavily clad, but, of course, she shivered from chill and fatigue.

The unfortunate woman slept but little during the night, and when day dawned, as she could tell by the dim light through the snow, she had not strength to rise and throw off the weight of snow lying upon her. A circular hole, probably caused by her breath, ran obliquely upward through the snow, and this gave her an idea. With great difficulty she broke a dead branch from the thicket at her elbow, and. putting her handkerchief upon it, thrust it upward through the snow, in hope that it might reach the outer*air and be recognised as a signal. Mrs Woodcock remembered that she had an almanac in her pocket, and with great difficulty took it out and found that there would be a new moon the next day. February 4, which she thought would be a blessing to her as it would bring better weather. She also managed to get. her snuffbox out and take two pinches of it. “ but felt so little gratification from it that she never repeated it.” Sound of Village Bells. There Mrs Woodcock remained no less than eight days, sustained by nothing but a little snow which she ate. She was conscious of the changes from day to night, heard the bells of her own and neighbouring villages; she could distinguish the rumble of passing waggons, the bleating of sheep and the barking of dogs. She even heard a conversation between two gypsies about a lost donkey. She cried out in an effort to make them hear her. but her voice was evidently muffled by the snow. Almost .a week after Mrs Woodcock’s | entombment a slow thaw began, which kept her in much misery because of the soaking of her clothes in cold water. She now decided that her end had come; her strength failed rapidly and

■ her breath grew shorter. On Sunday I about noon the second Sunday after j her disappearance- -a young farmer on | his way home from Cambridge noticed I the handkerchief upon the twig and ; went to the drift. There was a little tunnel running down through it. and looking down the man could rlimly see a human being and hear laboured breathing. He caller two men. a farmer and a shepherd who lie saw not far off and they rai to the spot. The shepherd, looking j down, called. " Is that you, Elizabetl j Woodcock?" To which she replied, in f j faintest voice. “ Dear John Stitt.!.*, j know your voice. For God’s sake helj I me out of this.” i The men dug away the snow, releaser the woman, gave her stimulants aiv took her home. The whole neighbour hood had been searching for her. Whei the horse, came home without her lie husband at once set out for Cambridg and thereafter searched dav and nigh for four days. She never recovere< from the experience. A portion of he frozen foot was amputated, and afte lingering in a very weakened state fo