Missing Everest guide found alive after six days

A Nepali mountain guide feared dead on Mount Everest has been found alive after six days, crawling down the mountain toward base camp in what rescuers described as a rare self-rescue at extreme altitude.

Dawa Sherpa, 52, disappeared on May 29 while descending from high on Everest after assisting a Polish climber. He was last reported above Camp 3, about 7,500 metres, or 24,600 feet, where oxygen levels are dangerously low and survival without help is considered unlikely.

A cleaning crew found him Thursday morning near the Khumbu Icefall, the heavily crevassed glacier above Everest Base Camp. Pemba Sherpa, executive director of 8K Expeditions, which was overseeing the search, said Dawa was “slowly sliding through” the icefall when he was spotted.

“This is a true self-rescue,” Pemba Sherpa told the BBC. “Dawa managed to survive against all odds for days. It’s nothing short of a miracle.”

Al Jazeera reported that Dawa was carried down to safety, given food and water, and then flown by rescue helicopter to HAMS Hospital in Kathmandu. His wife and daughter were waiting there after having already begun funeral rituals for him.

“We first heard that he was still alive on the local news and from a person we know who called with the news that … he is being brought down,” his wife, Damu Sherpa, said.

His teenage daughter, Mendo Lhamu Sherpa, said the family was on the second day of a funeral ritual, which lasts several days, when word came that he may have survived.

“When we first heard about it, we could not be sure if that person was indeed our father,” she said. “So to be certain, we asked for photos to be sent, and then only we were sure and very happy.”

Before he was found, Dawa’s wife had told AFP that she had offered last rite prayers for his soul. The BBC reported that hopes for his survival had been slim, and that 8K Expeditions had launched an aerial search in the days after his disappearance but failed to locate him.

Dawa, an experienced climber also known as Hillary Dawa Sherpa after mountaineer Edmund Hillary, had been descending from Camp 4, the highest camp before the summit. Chris Thrall, a climber and former British Royal Marine, posted a tribute to him on Instagram on Wednesday, believing he had died.

Thrall said Dawa had sat down to rest with his backpack during the descent. “And I turned and I said, ‘Hillary, are you okay, brother?’ He said, ‘Yes, yes, fine Chris, please go, go!’” Thrall recalled. “This is nothing new, you know, I’d go ahead, he’d go ahead.”

Thrall said he later found a struggling Polish climber, and the two continued descending together. Dawa never caught up with them.

Pemba Sherpa said Dawa was in overall good health when he was found, despite spending days alone high on the mountain. “As far as I know, no one has survived alone at that altitude on Everest so far,” he said. “This is a miracle to have survived for six days alone and descended safe. I think he must have lived inside the tents to keep himself safe.”

The crew that found him was part of the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee, Al Jazeera reported. The group places ladders and ropes on the Everest route at the start of the climbing season and removes equipment and cleans the site after climbers leave.

This year’s Everest season has been the busiest on record. More than 1,000 climbers and guides reached the summit last month. At least five people have died this season, including three Nepalis involved in Everest preparations, according to AFP.