NARVIK, Norway (CNN) -- Fresh from medical school, Anna Bågenholm chose to do her residency in the Norwegian city of Narvik because of its spectacular mountain slopes. An expert skier, Bågenholm had gone off the trail with two other young doctors on a warm spring afternoon when she fell.
Rescuers worked frantically to save Anna Bagenholm from a hole in the ice of a mountain stream.
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What happened that day in 1999 changed her life and has redefined what is possible in cases of accidental hypothermia.
Bågenholm slid down a steep, icy gully and ended up submerged head first in a hole in the ice in a mostly frozen stream. Only her skis and Telemark boots and bindings protruded from the thick, opaque ice. As the 29-year-old struggled, her friends Marie Falkenberg and Torvind Næsheim began a frantic effort to free her, made impossible by a torrent of frigid spring runoff pouring over them into the hole where their friend was submerged.
They called for help, starting a chain of events that is now part of medical literature and local lore.
Bård Mikkalsen, a police lieutenant in Narvik at the time, took the call.
"I realized this was really a serious case," said Mikkalsen, who has since retired. He scrambled a pair of rescue teams in Narvik, one from the top of the mountain, the other from the bottom. He also contacted the nearest rescue team in Bodø, nearly 200 miles away, but the Sea King helicopter had already left to transport a sick chil
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