Alaska avalanche survivor and winning essayist spent years digging out of PTSD - Alaska Public Media

An Alaska-based writer and photographer who survived an avalanche near Eagle River nearly 40 years ago — a bone-crushing event that killed his best friend and climbing partner — has wonBut Joe Yelverton says the real survival story isn’t about making it out of the mountains alive that day. It’s about digging himself out of the post-traumatic stress and grief that buried him for years, leading to addiction and thoughts of suicide, which almost killed him long after the snow had settled.

Still, Yelverton says the most formative moments of his life and the story of his survival began that day in 1984 with his friends Steve and Barry, as they approached the top of Eagle Peak.: I heard what sounded like an explosion. And Steve and I had been on this ledge that was kind of sticking out of the face. And it just sounded like thunder above us. And I looked up and saw about a probably 7- to 10-foot wave hit us. And then, of course, everything turned white.

I actually, to be honest, I wasn’t even sure if I was really alive. It was so surreal that I was was not really even sure if I had survived. I was really confused. I remember looking up where we had come from. And I saw a little figure, and that’s when I knew that Barry had survived. And it probably took him maybe 20 minutes or so to get down to me. He went to check on Steve first. But Steve had suffered some pretty severe injuries, and he was already dead at that point.

I started making some headway with a really great therapist, and I’ll never forget what she said to me. She said, “You know, you’re never going to get your old life back. This is your life. And your choice now is, what are you going to do with it?” It was really sobering. Because previous to that I felt like PTSD was whipping me around on the end of a long rope, and I had no control. And I started learning that I really was not my thoughts.

And so I started feeling better about about life, and I really started missing Alaska. So I moved back to Alaska, and it was really shortly after that, a little over 10 years ago, I met, who had just finished his last deployment, a real violent deployment, and I met him at a potluck in Eagle River. And we became fast friends. I gained a window into his recovery. And I spent a lot of time with him.

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