Date: March 10 2007
Location:Blue Mountains, Northern Peninsula
Easting:
Northing:
Latitude:
Longitude:
Fatalities: 1
Injuries: 1
Source: CBC web site, radio interviews
An avalanche on Eastern Blue Hills near River of Ponds Northern Peninsula. killed Jamie Patey, 30 years old. A party of 11- 2 adults 9 teenagers were out on snowmobiles, in good weather. They stopped at foot of a steep slope and the group started walking up the slope. Jamie and Jason Patey were perhaps 100-150′ from snowmobiles, and the teenagers higher on slope when the avalanche started. It swept downslope – reports suggest 7 were buried to some degree; the two older men were most deeply buried. Jason Patey was suffocating but was dug out in time. Jamie was buried perhaps 3′ down in a pile of debris up to 15′ thick. Eric Patey was at home in River of Ponds when a cell phone call for help was received – he left immediately with others for the 15-20 mile ride. When they got there Jamie had been found, and Jason was trying to revive him. Efforts at CPR were unsuccessful
CBC web site report
Residents of a small town on Newfoundland’s Northern Peninsula say they are shocked by a weekend avalanche that killed a 30-year-old man.
Jamie Patey had been a member of a group that had been snowmobiling on Eastern Blue Mountain on Saturday afternoon, outside the community of River of Ponds.
All 11 members of the party left their machines to walk up a slope when the snow above them gave way and came crashing down.
Friends dug Patey out of the snow but could not revive him.
Eric Patey, his uncle and the town’s mayor, rushed with others to the scene after receiving a panicked cellphone call from a member of the party.
“It looked to me they were all in a daze,” Patey told CBC News on Sunday.
We worked on [Jamie Patey] for quite a while but we got no response, whatsoever. I guess the problem was that probably he was in there too long before we arrived on the scene.”
Jason Patey no direct relation to the victim had been dug out of the snow, Eric Patey said.
“Jason told me as far as he was concerned, it was over for him, too. He was even gasping for breath and he was just about gone, too. He told me he knew that the end was soon coming,” Patey said.