A man who went back-country skiing last week in Utah’s Wasatch Range captured his own near-death experience on video when he accidentally skied off an unmarked 150-foot cliff.
Devin Stratton, 25, of Orem, Utah, told the Washington Post that he recorded the footage with a GroPro camera that his sister gave him a couple of years ago. He said he usually does not take the camera with him on skiing excursions, but decided to do so this time.
"I'm super glad I did," Stratton told the Post. "I would never wish for it to happen to anyone, but it's pretty lucky to have on video."
The video, which showed Stratton’s view as he skied the slope, showed a typical ski run at first. About 20 seconds into the footage, however, Stratton veered onto a small hill and, before he could stop, straight off the unmarked cliff just past it.
Stratton turned his body as he fell, landing on his back in more than 2 feet of fresh powder below. He credited that snow and his backpack, in which he carried equipment to dig himself out of a potential avalanche, with saving his life.
In an Instagram post that included the video footage, he told the story of the aftermath.
"Turns out I am afraid of heights," Stratton wrote. "Miraculously, I didn't even have a bruise! I did break a lot of gear, including my helmet."
He also thanked a friend for helping him dig his lost ski out of the snow, a task that took nearly five hours.
Stratton, an avid skier since the age of 14, told the Post that the moment he went over the cliff's edge was one of the most terrifying of his life.
"I immediately thought about my cousin who was (left a) quadriplegic from a car accident and thought, 'I'm going to be paralyzed,'" Stratton told the newspaper. "And then when I saw how big the cliff was when I was going over the edge, I thought I was dead for sure."
The accident has not kept Stratton from the sport he loves, the Post reported. He’s already been skiing three times since last week.
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