British man digs son out alive from under 5ft of snow 30 minutes after he was buried

‘I won’t forget the moment I got to hold him. He was so cold, but he was alive,’ father says

A British father “dug like everything in the world mattered” to rescue his 11-year-old son from beneath 5ft of snow after he fell down a hole while skiing.

Headcam footage shows Gillon Campbell’s son, Fox, skiing between two pistes in Chamonix, in the French Alps, before falling into a hole and being swiftly engulfed by snow. Fox can be heard screaming “Daddy” as he struggles to free himself.

Mr Campbell used a transceiver device to locate this son and began digging with a shovel.

About 30 minutes after his son fell in, Mr Campbell managed to shovel enough snow out of the way to uncover his face, prompting Fox to shout “thank you”.

Mr Campbell said he and his family were skiing off-piste between two runs when Fox, his older son, went ahead while he waited for his younger son.

“It was a beautiful sunny day ... with fresh snow on the ground,” he told La Chamoniarde, a mountain rescue organisation. “We were skiing along a piste and we saw a lovely, gentle powder field that led down to a gully and rejoined the piste below.

“When we got to the piste, I was a bit surprised that my 11-year-old boy, my oldest one, wasn’t there because we always stop at the piste and wait for each other.

“But I thought he had probably met my wife and so we skied on to the lift. I thought my son was in front with her, but he wasn’t, so we went up the lift. He still wasn’t there.”

Mr Campbell said he decided to retrace their ski-run down and noticed the snow was different and looked ”a bit crumblier” around the end of the gully.

He said he turned his transceiver to search mode and it beeped, telling him someone was in the snow close by.

“I just dug like everything in the world mattered to me,” he said.

“That was a really, really scary moment. I’ve never been so scared. I dug and I found his head about 1.5m under the snow, and I cleared his head and he talked to me.”

Fox can be heard shouting “thank you” repeatedly as his father uncovers his head.

Mr Campbell said: “I shouted for help. A couple just heard me on the edge of the piste, they stopped and within a few minutes the alarm had been raised, the pisteurs arrived and they helped dig him out.

“I won’t forget the moment I got to hold him. He was so cold, but he was alive, and he was fine.”

Anthony Bouricha, a member of the ski patrol who rescued Fox, said: “He was buried under the snow for about 30 minutes, the chance of survival after this time is usually small as the risk of suffocation is high. But he survived unscathed.

“It is important to know that only the open and marked pistes are secured and patrolled by the pisteurs. We put up signs to warn of danger and we trigger avalanches to secure the open ski slopes, but we do not trigger avalanches to secure off-piste.”