I saw an article today about these avalanche airbags in Outside and thought I'd share.

http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/the-gist/Blowing-Up.html?page=1

Appearntly the 97% statistic comes from a Swiss study. However, the rate of fatalities due to tramau is much higher here in the US (~25%) and Canada (~50%) then in Europe (~6%).