[imagesource: Instagram / @shredsauce]

The second you see that first crack appearing in the snow, you know you’re in real danger.

Maurice Kervin knows this, and he’s lucky to have escaped unharmed after a backcountry snowboarding mission on January 8 took a turn for the worse.

He was tackling No Name Peak near Loveland Pass, in Colorado, when he saw the snow coming for him.

CNN reports:

“I was in awe of how big it was, and very thankful that I was alive, honestly, or not buried, not fatally injured,” Kervin told CNN. “The magnitude of it was definitely enough to bury you, mangle you or possibly kill you. It was very intense.”

Not only did the 25-year-old Denver man survive, but Kervin managed to escape free of injury. He captured the adrenaline-pumping experience on video around 1 p.m.

Thankfully, Kervin came prepared, wearing a backpack that comes fitted with an airbag, designed specifically to deploy in the case of an avalanche.

Here’s some of the footage he captured:

Listen at about 18 seconds into this video, and you’ll hear an airbag deploy, likely saving this snowboarder’s life during an avalanche on Loveland Pass.

Courtesy .@shreadsauce pic.twitter.com/nGkgOmD9Bm

— Matt Makens (@MattMakens) January 15, 2021

On his Instagram account, Kervin (who goes by @shredsauce) shared the raw video.

If you’ve ever worked a ski season in the US, you’ll have encountered plenty of folks like Kervin, who says he is a “cryptocurrency investor and amateur snowboarder”.

Let’s hope he has the passwords to his Bitcoin stash written down somewhere safe.

Here’s Kervin recounting the experience to local news station Denver7:

He may have lived to tell the tale, but according to stats from Colorado Avalanche Information Center (CAIC), an average of 27 people die each winter from avalanches across the US.

Last year, there were 23 avalanche deaths in the US.

[source:cnn]