Emily Anderson is lucky to be alive after an avalanche buried her for more than 15 minutes.
According to WPTV, Anderson was skiing Crystal Mountain in Enumclaw, Wash., when more than three feet of snow broke loose and triggered an avalanche that overtook her and two other skiers on Monday.
"I saw, like, a crack, and, you know, you hear a little, a little pop when it starts to go. I realized that it was an avalanche and it just pushed me into a tree. And, all of a sudden, was encased and I couldn't move," Anderson told Good Morning America.
"I saw a slide break underneath my feet and I heard it. There was nothing I could do. It just started to sweep me off,” she told KING-5 TV station. “I remember going down and not being able to stop and going ‘Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh.’”
The other two skiers, whose identities have not been confirmed, were able to free themselves from the rushing snow -- and one of them even caught the whole ordeal on video -- but Anderson was trapped.
"My first reaction was I could easily die right here," she told the New York Daily News.
Luckily, the 20-year-old's quick thinking saved her life.
She told Good Morning America that her left hand had just enough room to scoop a little snow out of the way of her mouth, creating an air pocket for her to breathe.
"My head was down, facing down, a little bit and so I, like, had to kind of scoop the snow away. I breathed in snow a little bit -- that was scary," she said. "I was kind of in a sitting position, and my right arm was stuck out.. to my side.. [I] couldn't move it."
Although Anderson was screaming for help the whole time, no one was able to hear her under the snow.
"I felt very alone and I felt, you know, like -- this could be it!" she added.
Thankfully, one of Anderson's fellow skiers saw the whole thing and called for help.
After 15 minutes, rescue personnel were able to locate her using metal probes and dogs, said Crystal Mountain ski patrol director Paul Baugher to WPTV.
"Avalanche dogs are the best way to find somebody like Emily. This woman is lucky. The avalanche statistics say that once you're buried without a trace to the surface, your chance of surviving that -- statistically -- is one out of three," he added to Good Morning America.
"I'm very lucky! Everything about it went my way -- that's for sure," Anderson said of her rescue.
Anderson's neck was sore and her ski poles were lost, but she continued her run down the mountain after her terrifying ordeal.
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