A New Hampshire man checking on his home's leaky roof found himself snowed under — and fighting for survival. But Dean Mullins, who was buried under 2 feet of snow for a bone-chilling four hours on Sunday, wasn't willing to die. "I wasn't going to go out like that," he later told NBC affiliate WHDH.

Mullins had just finished clearing snow from the roof of his Peterborough home when a pile of it came crashing down on him. His wife and daughter had just left. He told the station that he managed to wiggle and move his left leg enough to find an air pocket for his face. After he called out for four hours, his wife finally came home and realized something was wrong. "She thought she heard something, and she said it sounded like a whisper," Mullins said. She called 911, and in the end, Mullins — shivering and bruised — was going to be OK. He's taking the experience in stride. "It was just ... being in the wrong place at the wrong time," he said.