Tour

	After having been buried under an avalanche in 1994, Herbert Fournier and his partner Daniela Venier began to view and evaluate avalanche research data. They collected numerous accident reports and statistics from all over Austria and Switzerland.
On the basis of three significant - encouraging - details, they began to develop a new system to locate avalanche victims.
	How do avalanche victims get buried? Most avalanche victims are buried relatively close to the surface not deeper than 1,5 ms. The average depth of entirely buried persons (last 20 years in Switzerland) is only 70 cms.
	How long do avalanche victims survive? Immediate help is a decisive life-saving measure, friends or witnesses should try by all means to locate and recover buried victims within the first 15 minutes, while virtually all victims without deadly injuries are still alive.
	Fastest recovery of avalanche victims: visible clues Average recovery time by visible clues: 10 min. (statistics 1980 -1999)
	Extensive searching or...
	...location 'at the first sight' - means prompt recovery!
	– immediate recovery even for more victims. Avalanche tests have shown that: victims are always found uphill from the ball. the cord remained always visible on the surface. the Avalanche Ball floats on top of the avalanche in front of the victim. never has been buried, not even by secondary avalanches, slides or after the avalanche came to a halt by snow afterflow. It always remained entirely on the surface.