dna23
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Registered: 1st Nov 04
Location: Northamptonshire
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quote:
Originally posted by All Torque
I read the article but it doesnt say what happened? 
MAMMOTH LAKES -- Two miles high in the Eastern Sierra, a volcanic hotspot swallowed the record 21-foot snowpack, claimed two of California's most experienced ski experts who fell into its maw, and then took the life of a colleague who tried to save them.
The deaths came despite a series of heroic rescue efforts on Mammoth Mountain, one of the state's premier winter resorts, authorities said today.
The tragedy unfolded in a fumarole, a crevasse that emits gases from deep within the mountain, set in a huge volcanically active basin.
Two ski patrol members had taken off their skis and were shoveling out the record snows that had obscured the 4-foot-high safety fence around the known hazard when the snow, apparently weakened by heat from below, gave way.
James Juarez, 35, a five-year veteran of the Mammoth Mountain ski patrol originally from Granada Hills, and John "Scott" McAndrews, 37, a Mammoth Mountain ski patroller from Bishop, fell to the bottom of the pit. They were engulfed in fumes, which elsewhere on the mountain emit a sickening sulfurous odor.
Initially, they were conscious and called for help.
"They were silent within a minute or two," said Rusty Gregory, chief executive officer of Mammoth Mountain ski area, in a press conference this morning.
Seeing his colleagues in danger, Charles Rosenthal, 58, of Sunny Slopes, Calif., a veteran of the ski patrol since 1972, went into the pit. He carried oxygen tanks for each of his friends, but wore none himself.
"He too was overcome," said Gregory.
Gregory said Rosenthal moved into the area "without regard for his own life…it was truly a poignant human tragedy."
At that point, a fourth ski patroller, Jeff Bridges, 51, went into the hole, using an oxygen tank. He too was quickly overcome.
Finally, an unidentified patroller, attached to a rope, went in without oxygen and pulled Bridges to safety.
A succession of ski patrol members tried to help throughout the ordeal. Seven were hospitalized as a result.
Rosenthal, Juarez and McAndrews were taken to a hospital.
"By the time they arrived, there was nothing really that could be done… they were essentially dead on arrival," said Dr. Stephen Swisher, the emergency room physician who treated them.
"The cause of death has not yet been determined by the Mono County Sheriff's Department but is possibly due to oxygen deprivation and/or being overcome by toxic gases," according to a statement issued today Mammoth Mountain ski area.
Mammoth Mountain stands on the southwest rim of the Long Valley Caldera, part of a volcanic chain that extends to Mono Lake. High concentrations of carbon dioxide have been seeping to the surface since a 1989 earthquake and have killed more than 100 acres of trees on Mammoth Mountain.
Authorities said three gases come out of the vents: carbon dioxide, which is predominant; hydrogen sulfide, with a rotten egg smell; and carbon monoxide.
Gregory identified the fumarole as one on Christmas Bowl run, east of Chair 3.
The deaths bring the total this year to eight at the popular Eastern Sierra ski resort, which broke its all-time snowfall record Tuesday. This winter season has been a deadly one for California, with at least 13 skiers dying.
Juarez, 35, was an independent guy who could never sit still, said his father, Jorge Juarez, 63.
James Juarez was born in Encino in 1971, but lived in Granada Hills for most of his childhood. He graduated from Kennedy High School in 1997 and joined the Marine Corps soon after.
After serving a year on active duty and then six years in the reserves in Los Angeles, Juarez attended Pierce College in Woodland Hills, and studied business and history in San Diego.
But it was the outdoors that called him. He became a lifeguard in 1997 in the city of Solano Beach. He took trips to Indonesia and Malaysia, where he would surf the biggest waves, his father said.
Three years ago, Juarez broke his back in three places while fixing the ski runs near the lifts, Jorge Juarez said. It took him nearly a year to rehabilitate and hit the slopes again. He knew Carlsson, the ski patrol member who perished in an avalanche this year, well.
Jorge said he worried constantly about his son. "He was very giving. I was always worried about that... I was worried he would give his life to save somebody."
His friends loved him, said his father. He loved to cook and was famous for his wontons -- "Everybody loved his wontons," said Jorge.
But it was his giving spirit and a life of service that would define him.
"He saved so many lives in Mammoth," said Jorge. "And in the ocean, he saved a lot of people from drowning."
McAndrews, a high school athlete who attended Penn State, was an avid outdoorsman. For 10 years he worked for Outward Bound, a nonprofit that teaches wilderness courses, said his father, Briggs McAndrews, an educator from New York.
"We would have liked him to be here, but he really developed a whole sense of loving California," his father said.
Eventually, he decided to join the ski patrol. "That was part of his real goal -- he was very service-oriented," said Briggs.
The night before the accident, he had called his parents excitedly to tell them that he had been selected as "rookie of the year" by his peers on the ski patrol.
"He really loved what he was doing," said Briggs. "He was very upbeat. He was quite happy in the area."
Mammoth, which rises to 11,053 feet in an active volcanic area, has several such vents, also called fumaroles.
Mammoth Mountain officials, skiers and ski patrollers were still trying to absorb the latest tragedy to hit the community about 300 miles north of Los Angeles, a snow sports destination that draws 1 million visitors a year, many from Southern California.
Earlier this year, five people died at Mammoth and a member of the Mammoth ski patrol was killed in an avalanche nearby. In a normal season, three people die in accidents or from natural causes at the resort. Last season, only two people died.
Jeff "Jake" Smith, 27, who patrolled at Alpine Meadows, was killed in 1982 as he tried to warn skiers to flee a danger zone. An avalanche smothered him and five other skiers. In 1985, a 9,000-foot peak above Lake Tahoe was named Jake's Peak in his honor.
At Mammoth on Thursday morning, the ski patrollers were moving the fencing around the vent near the Christmas Bowl on the upper mountain when the accident occurred at 11:29 a.m. The area where the accident occurred had been closed because of heavy snowfall. As of Wednesday, Mammoth Mountain had recorded 632 inches, or 52 feet of snow since October. The previous record of 617 inches was set in 1992-93.
David P. Hill, the scientist in charge of the U.S. Geological Survey's Long Valley Observatory in the Mammoth area, said the accident occurred at a well-known geologic feature called the Mammoth Mountain fumarole, a vent that releases water vapor and carbon dioxide from deep within the earth. There are a couple of other, smaller fumaroles on the mountain.
The vents, which emit a slight rotten-egg smell, are relatively harmless in summer when the gas dissipates into the atmosphere. "The problem comes in the winter when the snow builds up and covers this thing," Hill said. Hill said the heated gas can melt a cavity below the surface snow.
The area had already been cordoned off so that skiers would not inadvertently cross over it. "They were trying to move the fence farther back from the fumarole to protect skiers because they knew it was dangerous," said Hill, who talked to Mammoth Mountain officials. "They were doing the right thing. They were just unlucky."
Volcanic gas emissions are believed to have caused at least two California skiing deaths. In 1998, a 58-year-old cross-country skier from Torrance in good physical condition died in nearby Horseshoe Lake. He was found face down, and he was believed to have died from "carbon dioxide toxicity," according to the Mono County coroner. In 1995, a cross-country skier fell into a fumarole in Lassen Volcanic National Park and survived a week before succumbing to the effects of inhaling toxic fumes.
The deaths were another blow to the well-regarded ski patrol, which lost Sara Johanna Carlsson, 31, a native of Sweden, in January when she was killed in an avalanche skiing off-duty near Bridgeport with two other Mammoth ski patrol members.
At Mammoth on Friday, brilliant blue skies arched over the snow-packed mountains. Both major parking lots near lifts at the base of the resort were filled by 8:30 a.m., as skiers sought to take advantage of a rare heavy late winter storm that broke Thursday.
Gregory said he met for an hour Thursday night with the ski patrol.
He said he gave them the option of taking time off, and offered to close the entire mountain if they didn't feel it was appropriate.
"They all showed up for work this morning," Gregory said.
[Edited on 13-04-2006 by dna23]
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they risked their lives for the sake of others!