‘We were running out of air’: Terrified couple and their five- year-old daughter stranded for TWO DAYS in car buried deep in ice and snow

• Couple and five-year-old daughter found clinging to each other under four feet of ice and snow

• Rescuers had to break the window to get to the Higgins family

By Anthony Bond and Jennifer Madison

Last updated at 1:28 AM on 23rd December 2011

 Dailymail

A family rescued from their car which had been buried deep in ice and snow for nearly two days have told how they feared they would not make it out alive.

Rescuers had to dig through four feet of snow to free the Higgins family, whose 2003 GMC Yukon got stuck on a rural highway in New Mexico when a blizzard swept through the area on Monday, trapping them inside a virtual ‘vehicle igloo’.

They found David and Yvonne Higgins, from League City, Texas, and their five-year-old daughter, Hannah, lethargic and clinging to each other early yesterday morning on U.S. 56 near Springer.

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The family is recovering at Miners Colfax Medical Centre in Raton.

Mr Higgins, 48, said he and his wife both had pneumonia but his daughter was fine.

He said he was glad to be able to talk about his ordeal because he had feared that he and his family might not be found.

‘By nine or ten Monday night, I realised there was solid snow outside my window. I tried to shove my arm through the top of the window. I thought, “It can’t be that deep”‘, he said.

‘I pushed as hard as I could. My arm went about 16 inches and there was still snow.’

Me Higgins told the Houston Chronicle: ‘We became encased in a vehicle igloo. You could roll the window down and it just slid down, and you could touch it, and it was solid. So I rolled the window back up, and we kind of just looked at each other – me and my wife – and tried to keep my daughter calm.’

The family, who had left their home on Sunday for a pre-Christmas ski trip at Angel Fire resort in New Mexico, started to hit bad weather soon after they crossed into New Mexico.

They followed a snow plough for a while, but visibility dropped to zero.
‘It was white. You couldn’t even see the yellow line,’ Mr Higgins said.

It was getting so bad that he had slowed down to about 5mph. But despite having snow tyres, the blizzard stopped the family in its tracks.

Mr Higgins tried backing up and then driving forward again and made some progress, but then the SUV’s back end slipped around and the vehicle started to slide down an embankment.

He was able to keep the car running for a couple of hours, but when he went to get out to clear the exhaust pipe, his door was blocked.

Early on, the family could hear vehicles passing, so they tried honking the horn, but it failed to get them noticed.

The family had ski gear, plenty of water, sandwiches, and snacks, but as the hours passed, it seemed they were working harder to breathe inside the buried SUV.

‘We weren’t sure of it, but we think we were running out of air. That was spooky,’ Mr Higgins said.

Playing games on their mobile phones and watching films on his daughter’s travel DVD player helped pass the time, but Mr Higgins said the thought of not surviving started to cross his mind after a day of being buried.

‘We didn’t realise how deep the snow was,’ he said.

Mr Higgins eventually reached his brother in Texas by cellphone and the distress call was relayed to state police, who launched a search on Tuesday evening.

The National Guard was called out along with state transportation workers. State highway trucks with ploughs and rescuers in four-wheel-drive vehicles pushed through heavy snow and drifts as high as ten feet as teams probed the snow looking for the family’s SUV.

Then one of the rescuers hit the hood, and the digging started.
Mr Higgins said rescuers had to break the window to get to him and his family.

‘They pulled us up and out of it,’ he said. ‘The rescuer took pictures and it looked like a rabbit hole. We were three to four feet above the vehicle.’

Yvonne Higgins, remained hospitalised with pneumonia today.

Mr Higgins, and his father were on their way to pick up the family’s vehicle after it was pulled by rescuers from the snowdrift. The family plans to return to Texas when his wife is released from the hospital, though it was unclear when that might be.

‘Tired and whooped’ is how Mr Higgins described his family after their ordeal.

He had a simple message for travellers this winter: Throw a case of water and a sleeping bag in the car.

‘It will be there if you need it,’ he said. ‘I could see if we weren’t half as prepared as we were, it could have been a worse outcome.’

The Higgins family was among 32 vehicles state police and guardsmen rescued from the storm, but they were the only ones who police say needed medical attention.

It was one of two snow rescues in the Southwest on Wednesday.

A college student was released from the hospital Thursday after surviving what she said was a nine-day ordeal of being stuck in her car in the snow with no heavy coat, blankets or gloves and only two candy bars for food.

Authorities are still not clear about why 23-year-old Lauren Weinberg drove to the desolate mountain area of Arizona during finals week at Arizona State University before she was rescued Wednesday.

She was less than a mile from a ranch and in an area that had cell phone service. She told authorities her phone wasn’t working, and her car could not be seen from the ranch, where workers ploughed through 10 inches of snow to get her out.

Snow, wind and rain cause holiday travel worries across U.S.

• Winter storm warning issued for much of New Mexico with heavy snowfall expected to taper off tomorrow
• Over 100 flights cancelled in Denver area today after storm dumps ten inches
• Wind gusts up to 60 mph expected across Southern California over holiday weekend
• Heavy rain and thunderstorms in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee could disrupt flights
• Most violent weather expected to stay south of Tennessee

Snowfall in the Rockies, strong winds in the West and soaking rain in the South caused problems for holiday travellers on the first official day of winter, but benign weather and smooth travelling is expected across much of the country for Christmas weekend, forecasters said today.

The National Weather Service says higher elevations in New York state and New England could get three to six inches of snow tonight and into Friday.

The rest of the East down to the Carolinas can expect rain into midday Friday. Rain and thunderstorms are expected along the Gulf Coast.

Meanwhile, a winter storm warning has been issued much of New Mexico, with 12 to 18 inches of snow in the mountains before it tapers off tomorrow.

National Weather Service meteorologist Mark Wiley said travel could be hampered, though the winds were not likely to be as strong as the 35-40 mph winds that blew snow around earlier this week, shutting down highways in New Mexico and nearby states.

Christmas seemed to come early this week as a snowstorm swept across Colorado overnight, dumping up to ten inches of snow in the Denver metropolitan area and up to two feet of snow in the foothills west of the city.

The storm snarled rush-hour traffic in the Denver area, and roads from Wyoming to the New Mexico border remain snow-packed and icy, said Mindy Crane, spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Transportation.

More than 100 regional commuter flights from rural airports had been cancelled at Denver International Airport, but all runways were open, said airport spokeswoman Laura Coale.

The early winter snowfall is a boon to Colorado’s ski resorts for the upcoming busy holiday season. The fresh snow and warmer temperatures forecast for the weekend will make for optimum skiing conditions, said Mistalynn Lee, spokeswoman for the Winter Park ski resort west of Denver.

‘Christmas came early,’ she said.

Wind gusts also affected Southern California today, where forecasters warned travellers they should use extra caution as gusts up to 60 mph would make driving difficult over the holiday weekend. The Weather Service advised motorists to watch for broken tree limbs and downed power lines.

By Friday afternoon and Saturday morning, Wiley said, the snow storm is expected to move into north Texas, where two to four inches of snow could fall.

Heavy rain and thunderstorms in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee also could disrupt flights, said AccuWeather.com senior meteorologist Paul Walker.

Persistent rain was falling in Memphis early today and moving across the state.

‘There will be a lot of rainfall today, with the areas south and east of us getting one to three inches,’ said Trevor Boucher, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Nashville.

Most of the more violent weather — thunder and lightning storms — will stay south of Tennessee, he said.

The showers will move into the Northeast, bringing heavy rains and thick fog overnight to New York, Washington and Philadelphia, Walker said