A British toddler is lucky to be alive after a 3m snowman collapsed onto him and he stopped breathing.
Louis Nisbett-Vindal was crushed beneath the huge mass of snow and ice just minutes after arriving at an Austrian ski resort with his parents.
The boy's father Yves Vindal said he heard a loud crack as he watched his son suddenly "vanish" beneath the snow.
"The snow was like concrete — I was ripping and tearing at the snow and my hands were bleeding but I didn't care," Mr Vindal told Britain's Daily Mail newspaper.
"It was like he was trapped in cement … it was only when others rushed over to help that we managed to get him out."
Mr Vindal said his son was not breathing and had turned blue by the time he was pulled out.
The toddler was given CPR before being flown by helicopter from the resort at Tyrol to a hospital in Innsbruck.
Doctors treated Louis as an avalanche victim and placed him in an induced coma while they conducted tests to determine his injuries.
Luckily, the boy's injuries were not as bad as feared and he was released from hospital yesterday.
A police investigation is underway to establish whether criminal charges should be laid.
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