happened

to avoid making a broad dent in the snow. There was an icy crust on top, which shattered easily with his impact, and his body came to a halt several feet below the surface. Gratefully, he blacked out.
* * *
His revival came slowly, like a drowsy awakening. For a minute he remained motionless, monitoring his body sensations and considering his position. He had been out for a little more than two hours—a dangerously long time if the Primgranese were making a serious effort to find him. Since he was still buried under the snow and not in captivity, it seemed a reasonable assumption that the Primgranese had disregarded him, thinking he was merely one more dead or dying Lontastan whose inert trajectory had happened to intercept Earth. Or at most, they had made a cursory search from the air, and given up when they found no clear trace of him, perhaps assuming that his re-entry system had failed and he had burned like a meteor in the final stage of his fall.
For the moment, then, he was probably safe.
He pushed against the weight of snow that had caved on top of him, to come to his hands and knees. Then he began wriggling and crawling, pushing his way downhill through the drift.
Finally his head contacted harder stuff, and he butted through the icy crust and into the morning sunlight. As he looked around he felt his breathing mode change, his life-support having automatically sampled the air and found it suitable—with minor nasal warming—for human respiration. t