Skier recalls 'snow roller coaster'

SUMMIT COUNTY — Max Zilvitis, 11, remembers his dad yelling "avalanche" and then looking over his right shoulder just as a wall of snow hit the boy and sent him tumbling.

For what seemed like forever, Max was carried on what he called a "snow roller coaster."

"It felt like I went upside down," he said. "I moved around for awhile, but then I don't remember anything until the next day."

As Max was being swept away Sunday at The Canyons, he instinctively started doing what he had watched recently on the Discovery Channel about ways for increasing the odds of surviving an avalanche.

Max said he nodded his head up and down and moved his arms in front of him to create air pockets. He was trapped under the snow for more than 30 minutes. He was not breathing and had no pulse when he was found.

When Max regained consciousness the following afternoon, more than 24 hours after the accident, he was a little groggy at first, but then picked right back up as if the accident had happened not that long ago.

"He asked, 'What happened to me? Where are my skis? Where's my pass? Where's my jacket?"' He had saved up all fall for a new Burton ski jacket and pants. "It was the first thing he asked about," said his mother, Samantha Zilvitis. "Those questions made us feel great."

Max spoke publicly for the first time about his harrowing ordeal and his recovery, which some are calling nothing short of a miracle.

Max and his father were on their last run of the day. The avalanche happened in the Red Pine Chutes area off the 99-90 ski lift, but Max and his dad had taken the North Face. They had stopped at the bottom of Red Pine Chutes to rest. Max was sitting down when his dad heard someone yell something from up the hill. He looked up and saw the avalanche coming toward them, he said.

"It seemed surreal. It didn't look like it was going fast. I didn't think it would get to Max," Brian Zilvitis said.

Max was swallowed first by the snow, then Brian. Brian Zilvitis said he was buried to his waist but was able to dig himself out quickly. Because no one else was around, Zilvitis feared that "if I had gone under, no one would have known we were killed."

The Canyons reported it was 33 minutes from the time they learned of the avalanche until Max was found. But Brian said when the time it took to call 911 was factored in, Max was actually under the snow for 39 minutes.

When Max arrived at Primary Children's Medical Center, doctors slowly warmed his body but for 24 hours let his body temperature stay below normal to allow his brain time to heal. Already some of Max's organs were showing initial stages of suffering from a lack of oxygen.