Considering the pain and loss she's just endured, you may have a hard time convincing professional skier Elyse Saugstad that she's a lucky woman, but it's true. Saugstad was tackling Tunnel Creek in the Cascade Mountains with a group of other experienced backcountry skiers, when a large sheet of snow broke loose from the side of the mountain. Elyse and three others were sent hurtling 3,000 feet down the slope, sadly, only she survived the ordeal. Her almost miraculous escape was thanks in large part to the inflatable
