SNOQUALMIE PASS, Wash. (AP) – An ice cave collapsed on two teenage boys Thursday, trapping them for hours until rescuers with chain saws managed to cut through large chunks of compact snow and ice to free them.
The Seattle teens, 17-year-old Alec Corbett and 14-year-old Allesandro Gelmini, were both suffering from hypothermia, King County sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. John Urquhart said.
Gelmini was rescued first and Corbett about a half hour later. They spent more than five hours trapped beneath the ice.
A Navy helicopter flew the boys to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, where spokesman Steve Butler said they were listed in serious condition Thursday night.
The teens were hiking with their mothers and their sisters when they were trapped.
Corbett’s mother, Joni, told reporters she was ecstatic to learn that both had survived.
The accident happened near the Cascade Mountains pass, about 50 miles east of Seattle.
Several other hikers who had been nearby described the area where the boys were trapped as a canyon that had filled with snow. A small creek, or cascade of melted snow, had carved out a cave, with a roof of compacted ice.
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