During business hours, David Brown is Sunshine Coast Branch Manager for Corporate Express. Outside office hours, he’s an avid back-country skier, and a former member of the Thredbo Ski patrol – a highly trained, elite volunteer mountain ski rescue service.

In February this year, he and six friends were skiing in Japan when they came across a group of people who had been caught in a sudden avalanche near the peak of Hakkoda Mountain, 520km north of Tokyo.

With five members of the Thredbo Ski Patrol with him, David sprang into action. Together they helped to save the lives of 22 Japanese skiers, one of whom had been buried in deep snow for 90 minutes.

“We’re very experienced skiers, and we’ve been trained in search and rescue and resuscitation, and our training just took over,” says David.

“I reached one elderly gentleman, and when I got to him, all that was showing was one hand and half of his face, the rest of him was buried in the snow. The Japanese didn’t have any shovels, they were trying to dig people out with their hands, and you just can’t do that – the snow is like concrete.

“When I pulled him out, we could see that he had broken bones, a possible dislocated shoulder, and his gloves had been ripped off. He was obviously very cold, and it’s just common sense really – I put my spare gloves on him, put his hands in his backpack, and built a splint with the snow for the broken bones. I packed snow around his leg to stop any movement, and did the same with his shoulder.

“It’s instinctive to a degree, once you’ve done the training.

“And we trust each other – you have to, when you ski in remote and inaccessible areas. There’s no-one else around, and if something happens, you’re relying on your mates to get you out.

“That’s why we’re always prepared – we always carry rescue beacons, first-aid kits, GPS navigation gear, shovels, two-way radios and other emergency equipment,” he says.

“From my background in sales, and sales management, it was interesting to see who took over and became the natural leader…in this instance, it was one of the older guys.

“We coordinated our efforts through this one person, and that allowed us to go and do what we needed to do, which was extricate the people, find out what their injuries were and then build shelter, in the midst of a pretty horrific storm.”

But after the rescuers did a quick head-count, they quickly realised that one person was still missing.

“In cases like this, teamwork is extremely important – the ultimate goal is to keep people alive. If you stuff up, people can die.

“When you have people buried without transceivers (radio locators), you have to work as a team to cover as much ground as possible. We got into a bit of an ‘emu walk’, in a line, shoulder-to-shoulder, testing the snow with our avalanche probes – aluminium tubes which can be linked together like tent poles to make a three metre-long stick.

“If you hit something, you start digging!

“We weren't able to locate the missing man, and we realised that we had to focus on protecting the survivors, because they were in danger of hypothermia,” he says.

Having built a first shelter, David began digging a second igloo, and to his amazement, his shovel made contact with the buried man’s boot.

“I was worried that I had found a body, but then he moaned. He was alive, even though he'd been under the snow for at least 90 minutes.

“He’d fallen face-forward, and his helmet had trapped a pocket of air around him, so he could breathe.   The helmet was badly dented, his nose was smashed and his wrist was broken…but he was alive!” said a very elated David.

Alerted by two-way radio, it took Japanese authorities four hours to mount a rescue mission. Once the Aussies had helped to bring the survivors down the mountain to safety, they headed off for a hot bath.

It was only when they turned on the TV the next day that they realised they were heroes!
On March 26 this year, the Japanese Government held a ceremony at the Japanese Consul General’s private residence in Bellevue Hill, Sydney, to formally thank the men. Each was presented with several awards and gifts.