SEATTLE -- "A miracle, it's just a miracle. I mean, there's no other way to look at it. I mean, I thought he was gone yesterday," said Brian Corbett.

Brian told KIRO 7 that he thought his son, 17-year-old Alec Corbett, was gone when he and his 14-year-old friend, Alessandro Gelmini, became trapped in a snow and ice cave Thursday evening.

The accident happened near Snoqualmie Pass, while the two boys were hiking with their families up the Denny Creek Trail near Melakwa Lake, Matt Cowan of the Snoqualmie Pass Fire Department said.

Witnesses scrambled to try to chip away at the ice until firefighters arrived with chain saws and shovels that carefully got the ice out of the way.

The trapped boys heard their rescuers, family members said, and they tried to communicate from under the ice.

"They were screaming as much as they could, but he said they couldn’t cause the stream was kinda going over their faces and they just had to just scream for a little bit and then catch their breath again," Brian said.

The boys were in the dark, wounded and cold as they were trapped under the ice for nearly five hours.

"They found out they were close enough to touch each other so then they were holding hands and just talking about stuff and then they'd try to stay awake,” Brian said.

Family members said Alec is an avid outdoorsman and he knew the danger of hypothermia. He knew sleep could be deadly, so he did his best to keep Alessandro awake.

“That's the one thing Alessandro was saying, is he wanted to fall asleep. Alec said, 'You can’t fall asleep; you gotta stay awake. You gotta stay awake,'" said Alec’s uncle, Tom Skepetaris.

Family members said rescue crews were not optimistic about what they'd find.

"They were actually very surprised the boys survived. They said usually in these situations they don’t survive. They said they were very, very, very lucky that they came out of this alive," Skepetaris said.

The boys suffered significant injuries when the ice gave way. Both have hypothermia, broken backs and other broken bones, their families said in a statement.

Alessandro has already had back surgery and also has two broken legs and a dislocated shoulder. He remains in serious condition.

Alec is also expected to undergo back surgery, family members told KIRO. Alec suffered some other minor injuries and is officially listed as being in satisfactory condition.

Both boys are expected to make a full recovery.