Lemarque, center, is escorted by a nurse and doctor to a news conference Wednesday in Los Angeles
A former Olympic hockey player who endured nearly a week in the Sierra after getting lost while snowboarding had to have both his feet amputated, but he said Wednesday that he feels lucky to be alive and vowed to ride again.
"I feel rich. I've never been a happier man than I am right now," Eric Lemarque, 34, said from a wheelchair during a news conference at the Grossman Burn Center at Sherman Oaks Hospital. "God has saved me."Lemarque wore a red hockey jersey and his legs were swathed in bandages.
On Sunday, surgeons amputated both of Lemarque's feet at the ankles because of frostbite. He was scheduled to undergo a follow-up procedure Thursday to remove much of the rest of his lower legs, leaving tissue about 6 inches below the knee.
His feet had lost circulation and gangrene had set in.
"Unfortunately, frostbite to this extent ... calls its own fate," said Dr. Peter Grossman, associate medical director of the center. "There's nothing much that we can do."
Lemarque said he was snowboarding alone on February 6 at Mammoth Mountain ski resort when he deliberately left the marked boundaries of a run and became disoriented. He wandered for miles down the mountain's western slopes, which were covered in up to 15 feet of snow.
A search began five days later and he was found February 13, sprawled in the snow, conscious but barely moving.
Lemarque said he survived by eating pine nuts, bark and a few sticks of bubble gum. He slept on pine needles and branches to keep dry. He had matches but they were too wet to light.
Lemarque said he knew early on that he would lose his feet.
"I couldn't get a boot on. I was walking in the snow with one foot in a boot, with no socks on either foot."
His feet were "pretty purple, pretty red ... I just couldn't get 'em warm."
He used his MP3 player as a signaling mirror without success. He also listened to its radio signal to orient himself and was heading back up the mountain when a helicopter found him.
Lemarque waid he didn't begin to lose faith until the hours before the helicopter appeared.
It was only on the last day, he said, that he began to lose hope of rescue.
"I found myself trying to walk and falling over, and I started to become a little bit disorganized in my thoughts," he said. "I started to dream about actually getting saved and I started to think that, 'hey, this is a game and I want to reset the button.'"
The helicopter "was a sight I'll never forget," he said. "It warmed me to know that I was going to be all right."
Doctors said he could take his first steps using temporary prostheses in six to eight weeks.
Lemarque said he wants to return to the slopes as soon as his injuries heal.
"I'll be snowboarding next season," he said.
Lemarque said the experience has brought him closer to his parents, who are divorced, and has made him re-examine his life and appreciate it more.
"This could be the greatest experience of my life," he said.
Lemarque played hockey in the 1994 Winter Olympics for the French national team, scoring one goal in five games. Lemarque, a Los Angeles native whose father is French, said he played five seasons with the French national team. He also represented France in the 1994 and 1995 International Ice Hockey Federation World Championships. He has worked as a hockey coach in the Los Angeles area.