The survivor of a deadly avalanche in Washington recalled the horror of being tossed in roiling snow as if she was trapped inside a washing machine. “We didn’t really hear anything at first, then my partner started screaming at me, ‘Elyse, avalanche!’ It just happened so quickly,” professional skier Elyse Saugstad told CBS News.

“My first thought was that it isn’t that big. Within a second it immediately became much, much more. It feels like you’re inside of a washing machine, and being tossed around and turned, and it’s all white and you don’t know which way is up and which is down.” She was swept some 2,000 feet in 30 seconds.

“I definitely had that fear that this could be the way I ended,” she said. Saugstad credits innovative air bags that were in her backpack with saving her life. The instant she was hit by the snow, she activated the air bags, which kept her head up close to the surface, even though she said her feet felt as if they were encased “in cement’ when the avalanche stopped.

She was dug out immediately by others, but discovered a friend was already dead just three short feet away from her. Two others were also killed in the group of 13 friends, who are all expert skiers, that were carving the back country of the Stevens Pass ski area.

The three who perished in this horrible accident were Johnny Brenan, a Leavenworth local, Jim Jack, a pillar within the freeski community, and Stevens Pass own Chris Rudolph, the marketing director for the ski resort.

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