A 12-year-old boy was rescued 40 minutes after being buried alive when an avalanche struck the La Palagne area of the French Alps. He was skiing in a groomed off-piste area with his parents when a fast-moving wall of snow swept him away. The boy, who was not wearing a GPS transponder suggested for off-piste skiers in the region, was discovered by sniffer dogs dispatched to the area. “It’s a miracle because he had no victim-detection device. The chances of survival are minuscule after 15 minutes under the snow,” a local rescuer told Agence France Presse. Miraculously, the child only suffered a broken leg and is being treated at a local French hospital. His parents were unharmed.