Missing Canadian boy, 17, who got lost in the dark while snowmobiling builds snow cave to avoid hypothermia before being found five hours later - in 'text book' survival respone
A 17-year-old boy who went missing while snowmobiling in Canada has been hailed for his survival skills after he built a snow cave to survive.
The British Columbia teen, whose name has not been released, became lost around 6.15pm on Saturday when he was separated from his group near Spanish Lake.
The quick-thinking survivor parked his sled in a visible area near a wooded area – while his family and friends returned to the parking lot and called the South Cariboo Search and Rescue, who notified the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
'This young man did everything right after things went wrong,' the South Cariboo SAR said on Facebook.
The teen parked his snowmobile in a visible area close to some woods near Spanish Lake and dug the snow cove in the trees
A teen boy who went missing in Canada survived after building a snow cave
'This young man did everything right after things went wrong,' the South Cariboo SAR said
The volunteer organization found the teen around 10.34pm 'in good condition' with food and water and reunited him with his family around midnight.
'This young man made our task a little less difficult by staying in place and having some backcountry winter survival knowledge,' the organization posted.
Val Severin, a search manager with South Cariboo Search and Rescue, told CBC that the teen's choices 'were quite mature.'
'He didn't panic and lose track of the situation. He understood just the right thing to do,' Severin said.
Another 17-year-old boy, Nicolas Stacy-Alcantara, survived nearly 30 hours alone by building a snow cave in an incident in Utah
Earlier this month, a California teenager survived almost 30 hours after being trapped in the snow on a mountain in Utah and built himself a snow cave for shelter in another incident.
Nicolas Stacy-Alcantara, who is also 17, was visiting from Fresno to visit an ex-girlfriend and went on a day-long hike on January 2.
'I love hiking, it kind of clears my head,' he said at a press conference at University of Utah.
He took an Uber up a canyon east of Salt Lake City, bringing six peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and 40 ounces of water with him. He planned to be out all day and make it back in time for dinner after hiking 16 miles from Millcreek Canyon to Park City.
Stacy-Alcantara ended up trapped in snow and also dug a snow cave, which he slept in overnight.
He eventually found other hikers who had a satellite phone and he was flown out of the canyon by helicopter.