A Missoula woman has died from fatal injuries she sustained after a massive avalanche crushed her home.
According to police in the western Montana town who spoke with the Associated Press, Michel Colville died early Sunday morning at the medical facility where she was first transferred immediately after the heavy snowfall pounded her residence in northeast Missoula.
Michel's husband Fred Allendorf is reportedly still at St. Patrick Hospital in serious, but not critical, condition.
Michel and Fred were pulled out of the debris and wreckage the avalanche caused on Friday. A third person, eight-year-old Phoenix Scoles-Coburn, was also found with the elderly couple.
Both Michel and Fred were buried beneath the snow for nearly two hours before they were found by emergency response crews.
Fred was discovered in a fallen chimney from their house at the bottom of Mount Jumbo, located in the northeast region of Missoula. He'd managed to save breathing room in a pocket of air the smokestack provided.
Pheonix was stuck in the snow for almost one hour. His sister Coral, 10, was also outdoors when the avalanche occurred at about 4 p.m., but she climbed out of the snow with no serious injuries sustained.
Michel and Fred reportedly lived in the house that was struck by the slide, which barreled through a handful of residences in its path on Friday. The Missoulian reported at the time that neighbors and search teams who first arrived at the scene scrambled through the piles of white powder trying to find the missing people.
Utility crews were called to the neighborhood after someone reported a suspected gas leak.
Neighbor Cheryl McMillan lives minutes from the house. She said she heard a loud noise, but couldn't identify it initially.
"Then, when we looked again, we saw that their whole house was kind of no longer there, at least the top floor," McMillan said.
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