SNOQUALMIE PASS, Wash. — The chainsaw was almost an afterthought.
But as rescuers worked to save the lives of two teenage boys trapped when an ice cave collapsed on them Thursday, it proved invaluable. Slicing out 1-foot cubes of compact ice and snow, they reached the boys in a matter of hours.
The teens were flown to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle in serious condition. A spokeswoman said 17-year-old Alec Corbett had improved to satisfactory Friday while 14-year-old Allesandro Gelmini remained in serious condition.
“I don’t think there’s anybody who thought we were going to bring out two live, talking patients,” Eastside Fire and Rescue Lt. Dean deAlteriis said after emerging from the forest as darkness fell Thursday.
The Seattle teens were hiking with their mothers and their sisters two miles up a trail in the Denny Creek area, in the Cascade Range 50 miles east of Seattle, when the boys wandered into the mouth of the ice cave just before 1:30 p.m. Thursday. With a deafening crack, a 50-foot swath of the cave’s roof crashed down on them.
Several hikers who were in the area rushed to help as one boy’s mother called 911. Marilyn Pyke, of Graham, was leading a youth group outing; she said she and others tried to use sticks to chisel away at the ice, but stopped after realizing how unstable the snow was.
According to deAlteriis, as rescuers headed to the scene “one guy said, ‘Hey, let’s take a chainsaw.”’ The idea was that they might need it to cut trees for purposes of shoring up a wall of the ice cave or a trench.
Instead, they wound up using it to cut away the cubes of ice. Gelmini, reached first, was under six to seven feet of ice. Corbett was at least that deep, if not more, deAlteriis said. They spent more than five hours “pancaked” by the ice.
“Without that chainsaw, different story,” he said, shaking his head.
The ice cave was in a ravine bordered by sheer rock walls on either side. The ravine had filled with snow, and a small creek, or cascade of melted snow, had carved out a cave, with a roof of compacted snow and ice. The boys were several yards inside the mouth of the cave when it collapsed.
When rescuers arrived, the boys’ mothers and sisters pointed them to the area where they had last seen the two. After slicing away enough ice, they could hear the boys yelling.
Draped in a blue blanket, the yellow shoelaces of her hiking boots coming untied, Corbett’s mother, Joni, spoke with reporters after both boys had been rescued. She said she was ecstatic, but she didn’t want to talk about the details.
Her husband, Brian, said his emotions have gone “from the lowest I’ve ever been to now, it’s just great.”
Matthew Miller, 15, was on the youth group hike when he saw the cave collapse. He said he was astonished the two survived.
“It’s beyond luck,” he said.
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