Meet the HERO Behind the Incredible Sidecountry Rescue Captured on GoPro

When Francis Zuber left his house in Bellingham, Wash., March 3 to ski his local mountain, Mt. Baker, it started out like any normal day trip. It was an easy hour and change drive, and he rolled out of the car into some easy warmup laps. But as the day progressed, it became increasingly clear that luck was on his side.

To start, he intended to meet up with a friend, but only made loose plans beyond knowing they were both riding that day. Against all mountain odds, his friend spotted him on his first lap (let's be real, that never happens on a crowded Friday).

As the day progressed, the duo worked their way over to an out-of-bounds territory off Chair 8. Being experienced skiers and avy certified, they were comfortable in the terrain and had the proper safety gear, Francis let his buddy go first and chose to follow his line.

About a minute in-which Francis said was well before the "exciting part of the line" even-something caught his eye.

"I picked a line and I'd only been there a couple of other times, so I was going a little quicker than I would have liked through those tight trees," he recalls. "I did a jump and had to sort of bail and reset myself. It's a miracle that I did, because if I had come flying out of those trees, there's no chance that I would have seen a snowboard."

The snowboard happened to be another well-versed Mt. Baker local, Ian Steger, who was the last of his group to ride the sidecountry section. Ian either got clipped by a branch or snagged something, which led to him falling upside-down in a tree well.

"I can still see in my mind's eye what I saw in that moment," Francis explains. "It was just like this very abstract red flash. I thought it could be a couple of things in that split second-one of those lollipops ski patrol puts out or actually somebody standing up next to the tree. I thought, that was weird, so I had to take another look because it was so out of place for being out of bounds."

That's when Francis saw Ian's brightly colored board wiggling a few side steps up from him, and he took action.

"It was extremely shocking, going from this moment of euphoria, of skiing deep snow," he remembers. "Going from having the time of your life. To all of a sudden, it's like, 'Oh, my God, I have to save this person's life right now. There's no one else coming that can help. I have to do this now.'"

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