Azernews.Az

by Alimat Aliyeva

A former British soldier has described the dramatic moment he became separated from his Nepali mountain guide while descending Mount Everest, in what has since become a remarkable survival story, AzerNEWS reports, citing BBC.

Dawa Sherpa was found alive on Thursday, six days after he was last seen above Camp 3 at an altitude of around 7,500 meters (24,600 feet). His survival has been described by climbers and rescuers as nothing short of extraordinary, given the extreme conditions in the Everest “death zone,” where oxygen levels are critically low and temperatures can plunge well below freezing.

Speaking to the BBC’s Newshour, climber Chris Thrall said he initially found it impossible to believe that Sherpa had survived.

“It’s kind of crazy — one moment I was fighting back tears with his daughter, and the next I was hearing that he had made it back alive. It’s absolutely incredible, beyond words,” Thrall said.

Thrall recalled that the last time he saw Dawa Sherpa, the guide had stopped briefly to rest on his backpack as the team descended toward base camp after several exhausting days on the mountain.

Known to fellow climbers as Hillary Dawa Sherpa, in honor of legendary Everest pioneer Sir Edmund Hillary, the experienced guide was highly respected within the mountaineering community.

After passing Sherpa, Thrall continued descending alone for approximately 50 to 100 meters before encountering another member of their group — a Polish climber who was suffering from severe frostbite and had run out of supplemental oxygen.

“My attention immediately shifted to the weakest member of the team,” Thrall explained. “At that point, helping him became the priority.”

The circumstances of Dawa Sherpa’s survival remain unclear, but mountaineering experts note that surviving nearly a week alone at such an altitude is exceptionally rare. The story has already been hailed as one of the most remarkable Everest survival accounts in recent years, highlighting both the dangers of high-altitude climbing and the extraordinary resilience of the human body.