[img]https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OvdRzJ1DYQs/WFJ1gWZ141I/AAAAAAAAELg/lD146LZI7Z8MDpdKqC_V-epZwFn6IC2HgCLcB/s280/a.jpg[/img] A boy who was playing in a huge snow
mound has died after it collapsed and
buried him under tonnes of snow.
Joshua Demarest, 13, died but his friend
Tyler Day was found alive after being
submerged for hours in New York.
A snow plough might have triggered the
collapse as it dumped cleared snow on
top of the mound, and Tyler told police
he heard bleeps before "it went black".
Seven tonnes of snow was removed in the
frantic, hours-long rescue in the upstate
town of Greenwich.
Investigators were first called by Tyler's
sister after he had not returned home by
17:00 local time.
Police, assisted by search dogs, followed
the boys' tracks from their home and
found their sled beside the mound of
snow.
"I bet they moved seven tonnes of snow
easily out of that pile by hand, shovels
and snow rakes," Greenwich Police Chief
George Bell said at a news conference.
Rescuers found Joshua but he was
unresponsive and rushed to hospital,
where he was declared dead at 22:00
local time. An hour later, the second boy
was found alive in a pocket of air.
"You can actually see the little pocket in
that huge bank that he survived in and it
is nothing short of a miracle," said Mr
Bell.
It was "a true accident," he added.
"That's all I can tell you. A tragedy all
the way around. There was no way that
anybody could have seen the kids
burrowed in back there."
Department of Public Works
Superintendent Leo Flynn says it would
have been impossible for his workers to
have seen the teens beneath the snow.
"The guys are devastated," said Mr
Flynn. "I mean again, they're all firemen.
They all have kids in the school and
grandkids and yeah, they're struggling
with it."
