Blackfoot Man’s Shocking Snowmobile Close-Call Goes Viral

For one Blackfoot man, a brush with death has turned into unlikely YouTube stardom.

“I feel lucky to be alive,” said snowmobile enthusiast Kyle Pratt.

On a walk through his quiet neighborhood west of Blackfoot, Pratt recounts the snowmobile ride that could have been his last.

“You know it’s not very believable,” he said. “You don’t really get it all until you see the video. So, I think the video does quite a bit of justice.”

If not for the incredible video recorded with a camera in Pratt’s goggles, it’s likely no one would believe how close a call Pratt experienced.

“Most cases, you get up to the peak, there’s somewhere to park, turn around, come back down,” said Pratt. “But in that case, it was just a sheer drop off.”

Pratt was zipping across an untouched field of snow near Bedford, Wyoming. He burst out of the tree line, and to the edge of a very steep cliff.

“As far as I could see, it was 300 foot drop probably,” said Pratt. “That was to the top of the rock cliffs. I’m not sure how far it was after that.”

He managed to inch away from the drop, saving himself and his sled. The day carried on, until Pratt was back at home. He sat down with his wife and watched that shocking video.

“It wasn’t cool for me,” said Lindsey Pratt.

Lindsey says she wished she’d never seen that tape.

“I woke up several times during the night,” she said. “What if he wouldn’t have come home?”

But he did come home, and posted that shocking video to the Internet video site, YouTube. A little less than two weeks later, it has more than 1.4 million views.

“Pretty cool,” said Lindsey. “Even though it is a scary nervous thing.”

It may have been scary and nervous. But, not enough to stop Pratt from getting back on a sled. We asked if he’d learned a lesson.

“No not really,” he said. “Cause there’s really nothing I could have done different.”

The Bonneville County Sheriff said there is one thing Pratt could have done differently — stay with his group instead of take off ahead.

Sheriff spokesman Jeff Edwards also said, if a rider takes the extra risk like Pratt, they should be sure to have all necessary avalanche safety gear. Pratt tells our station he did.