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      Five Missing Skiers Found Dead in Swiss Alps

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      The police said weather conditions had deteriorated after the group set out from the town of Zermatt over the weekend. The search continued for a sixth person.Five missing skiers were found dead in the Swiss Alps and the search was ongoing for a sixth member of their group, the local police said on Monday.The skiers set out from the Swiss resort town of Zermatt on Saturday morning, aiming for the village of Arolla, across a series of snow-covered peaks.A relative alerted rescue services on Saturday afternoon that the group of Swiss citizens age 21 to 58 had failed to arrive at the village, according to a statement from the Valais region’s police force.One of the skiers managed to call for help about an hour later, allowing rescuers to locate the group near the peak of the Tête Blanche mountain at about 11,000 feet of altitude, the commander of the force told a news conference on Monday. But severe weather conditions and a risk of avalanches forced the search to be suspended until the next day.The rescuers had “tried the impossible,” Christian Varone, the commander, said. But, he added, “sometimes in the face of nature, one must surrender” so as not to put the lives of rescuers in “grave danger.”Christian Varone, center, commander of the Valais region police, told a news conference on Monday that rescuers had “tried the impossible.”Fabrice Coffrini/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSearch and rescue efforts resumed on Sunday, and the police said that the five bodies were discovered at about 9:20 p.m.Mr. Varone said an investigation was underway to determine cause of death, but noted that the skiers “found themselves in an extremely complicated situation” in low temperatures.Weather conditions in Zermatt were “relatively good” when the group departed but had quickly deteriorated, he said.In the mountains, “we can get going and everything changes very fast,” he added.Seven hikers died in the same area in the spring of 2018, when they got caught in a storm and froze to death, according to a recent documentary. More

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      Firefighter Rescues Driver in Truck Hanging Over Kentucky Bridge

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      For nearly an hour, the driver was trapped in a tractor-trailer leaning over the side of a Kentucky bridge until a firefighter lowered on a rope made a daring rescue.A rescuer pulled the woman to safety after a crash left the vehicle hanging over the Ohio River on a bridge in Louisville, Ky.John Sommers Alamy Live News, via Associated PressFor nearly an hour, the driver of a tractor-trailer was trapped in its cab as it dangled high above the Ohio River off the side of a Kentucky bridge after a multivehicle crash on Friday.From the bridge, emergency responders shouted directions to the driver. Emergency crews set up a rope system and lowered a Louisville, Ky., firefighter, Bryce Carden, to rescue her.“Thank God,” the driver said when Mr. Carden drew even with the truck’s cab, he recalled at a news conference on Friday.Initially, Mr. Carden said, he struggled to free the driver from her seatbelt.“We were given a free pocketknife during our trainings, and I had that pocketknife on me, so I was able to cut her out of her seatbelt,” he said in a phone interview on Saturday. “I was able to get her out and get the rest of the harness on her.”The driver and Mr. Carden, who were now attached to each other, were about 100 feet above the river as they were lifted up to the bridge, a process that took about five minutes.“I kept telling her ‘I have you, I have you,’” Mr. Carden said on Saturday. “She was just thanking God, and then I told her, ‘Let’s just keep praying together.’”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Girl Dies After Digging Hole at Florida Beach, Authorities Say

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      The 7-year-old was on vacation with her family from Indiana when she and her brother became trapped in the sand at Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, the authorities said.The girl was playing with her brother when the hole they were digging collapsed, trapping the two in the sand.Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun-Sentinel, via Associated PressA 7-year-old girl died on Tuesday after the hole she was digging with her brother at a Florida beach collapsed, burying the pair in sand, the authorities said — one of a few instances in which such an episode turns deadly each year in the United States.The girl, Sloan Mattingly, was on vacation with her family from Indiana in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, a coastal town about 30 miles north of Miami, and was playing in the sand with her 9-year-old brother, Maddox, when they became stuck on Tuesday afternoon, the Broward County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.In a 911 call released by the Sheriff’s Office, beachgoers can be heard screaming as a breathless woman, who describes herself as a registered nurse, tells the operator that “there’s a little girl buried in the sand.” The girl’s father had yelled for help, and people were trying to dig her out, the woman says. She says she could not see any part of the girl’s body. “Mom’s yelling, ‘My daughter’s in there,’” she says.Footage appeared to show other beachgoers crowded around the sand hole, trying to dig out the girl before rescuers arrived. Other 911 callers sounded distressed as they described the frantic scene.Sandra King, a spokeswoman for Pompano Beach Fire Rescue, said that rescuers had been called to the beach at around 3:15 p.m. and had found several adults frantically trying to dig the two children from the hole, which was about four to five feet deep by four to five feet wide. The boy was buried up to his chest, and the girl was underneath the sand completely, she said. Rescuers secured the edges of the hole to prevent it from collapsing further and managed to extract them both.Rescuers tried to resuscitate the girl, who had no pulse, as they took her to a hospital, where, the sheriff’s office said, she was later pronounced dead. The boy was uninjured, Ms. King said. “The scene was very, very traumatic, and the parents were absolutely hysterical, understandably,” she said. “They’re there to enjoy a day at the beach and this horrible tragedy occurs.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A ‘Corpsicle’ Came Back to Life on ‘True Detective.’ Is That Possible?

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      An incident involving a group of frozen bodies on the fourth season of the HBO series has raised some scientific questions.The men lay frozen naked in a ghoulish pile, with mouths agape and eyes glazed over, their hair encrusted with ice and snow. They were all dead — or so the investigators on the HBO series “True Detective: Night Country” thought.Frozen bodies are a familiar problem in this fictional Alaska town near the Arctic Circle, but this giant “corpsicle” is unusual. And so is what happens at the end of the episode, which aired last Sunday: one of the men wakes up when his arm is accidentally snapped off by an officer.The resurrection has sparked grisly speculation among some fans: How can a person be living, a viewer on Reddit asked, if that person’s limbs are so frozen? “They could have been flash frozen in a moment of terror” at the moment of their deaths, another speculated. Many were skeptical that the human body could survive such an ordeal and wondered if the show was straying into the supernatural.Doctors say that it is impossible for a completely frozen person to make a recovery. But it is possible for someone who appears frozen — limbs stiff, skin cold and hard, and without a pulse or breath — to be resuscitated, depending on how long the person has been out in the cold.“If all the tissue in your body is ice, or has ice in it, then you’re not coming back,” said Ken Zafren, a physician and a professor of emergency medicine at Stanford University, who also works in Alaska. But, he added, “I’ve seen plenty of cases in which the person really looked dead, and could come back.”During hypothermia, an adult’s body temperature can cool well below the normal average of 98.6 degrees, Dr. Zafren said. A person’s pulse and breathing slow significantly, reducing the body’s need for oxygen. Eventually, the person may go into cardiac arrest, stopping the pulse and breathing altogether. But because the brain is cold, the lack of oxygen takes longer to cause damage, he said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More