Boy freed after being buried in snow

By CNN Writer Tom Watkins

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (CNN) -- A ski rescue team freed a 14-year-old boy after he was buried under an avalanche of eight feet of loose snow Saturday on a mountain about 20 miles east of Salt Lake City.

The boy was not harmed.

"Apparently, he had an air pocket in there," said a dispatcher for the Salt Lake County Sheriff's office. "He's doing very good."

Lt. Rod Lowry of the sheriff's department said the boy had been on a sled, taking pictures of friends who were snowboarding, when one of the friends caused the avalanche with his snowboard. The snowboarder went off a crevice on the edge of a gully, Lowry said, and the boy was swept under.

The snow at the bottom of the gully was about seven or eight feet deep, said Lowry, and the boy was trapped vertically with his head about one foot below the surface.

Lowry said the friend found other snowboarders in the area, one of whom had a cell phone to call for help.

Authorities received the call at 3:51 p.m. (5:51 p.m. ET) and, by 4:08 p.m. (6:08 p.m. ET,) rescuers had cleared the boy's head, the dispatcher said.

Lowry said he was airlifted to a nearby hospital as a precaution but is doing fine.

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