“If you’re buried by an avalanche, you’ve got a good chance of survival if you’re found in 15 minutes. After 30 minutes, that chance drops to 50 per cent - and skiers should bear in mind that, on average, it takes rescuers 45 minutes to reach the scene. The message is, you’re relying on those you’re skiing with to be competent enough to save you.”

Getting fit for a ski holiday

“Exhaustion and a lack of fitness are the main reasons people hurt themselves,” says Matt Todman, consultant physiotherapist at the Sports and Spinal Clinic on Harley Street in London. “It is tougher than they expect.”

He and other experts recommend at least four weeks of sport-specific conditioning to get ready for a snow-sport holiday. Yet more than half of skiers and snowboarders questioned in a survey by Direct Line insurerance admitted they did no extra exercise to prepare for their trip.

It is not just novices who are prone to falls resulting in sprains and strains, the survey found. Beginners tend to be cautious, but hurt themselves through lack of balance and technique.

Avalanche training for teens

High-altitude adventure at an alpine training course that teaches teenagers to cope with any off-piste challenge

Last-second skiing breaks

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BACKGROUND

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• Head to head: world's best ski runs

• First time on the slopes

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While experienced skiers and snowboarders say that they have found themselves struggling on a difficult slope with injury often being the outcome. As a result, 15 per cent of skiers are forced to sacrifice more than three days of their holidays after hurting themselves.

Speed patrols

Switzerland introduced speed cameras on the slopes this season to try to reduce the increasing number of accidents.

Speeders will be tracked with hand-held radar devices carried by hidden personnel and persistent offenders could be fined or have ski passes confiscated.

Last year there were more than 70,000 accidents on Swiss ski slopes, many resulting in serious injuries and deaths. Swiss helicopter rescue teams were called out for serious accidents 300 times in December alone, and the total cost of rescue operations is expected to exceed £100 million.

The state-controlled Swiss Accident Insurance (Suva), the country’s biggest provider of compulsory cover, has responded by introducing the speed controls as part of a safety campaign.

Angela Zobrist, a spokeswoman, said: “This is not another fun-spoiling campaign of the health and safety brigade and we don’t intend to raise a warning finger to all snow sport lovers. It is a genuine safety concern. You do not realise how fast you go, which can prove to be really dangerous if you impact with another skier or have any other incident.”

The monitoring started in January the resort of Andermatt, and was extended to the rest of the country, including St Moritz, Zermatt and Davos. Similar experiments have been conducted on a small scale but this is the first campaign to include all the top resorts in Switzerland.

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