Swedish man stuck in snow-covered car for two months found alive

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Updated: February 20, 2012 9:03PM

Authorities say a 44-year-old man survived for two months in his car after it was buried by snow in Sweden.

Peter Skyllberg of Karlskrona, Sweden, drank melted snow but didn’t have food during his ordeal, according to the London Telegraph.

Although temperatures dipped to more than 22 degrees below zero, the air and snow around the car formed a natural igloo that kept him warm enough to live, the paper reported.

A passerby near the town of Umea happened upon Skyllberg’s car and got help. Skyllberg was reported to be “in really bad shape” — but alive.

“This is a case in a lifetime,” Dr. Ulf Segerberg, the chief medical officer at Norrland’s University Hospital in Umea told the Telegraph. “Every winter we have people who have frozen to death. But a case like this, with someone caught outside for such a long time, is very rare, because it’s very rare that you are not missed by anyone, which seems to be the case in this instance.

“Starvation for one month, anyone can tolerate that if they have water to drink,” Segerberg said. “If you have body fat, you will survive even longer.”

Skyllberg’s neighbor told the Telegraph he was a “loner.”

“He had got into a lot of debt ... and then he just disappeared,” said Magnus Jernberg. “It was a bit of a joke for us. We said ‘Oh, I think they just found Peter.’ And then it was Peter.”

Sophia Bairaktaris