Eating chocolate and chewing ice: Guide presumed dead on Everest told BBC how he survived

From the hospital bed where he is recovering, the guide told the BBC how he left the highest mountain in the world alive.
Prabin Ranabhat/ AFP via Getty Images
The Nepalese guide found alive after spending six days alone on Mount Everest told the BBC that he survived by chewing ice and eating chocolates he had in his pocket.
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Dawa Sherpa stated that he did not disappear during the descent, but that he was forced to stay back after the oxygen ran out.
He was believed to have died on the mountain. His family in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, had already begun funeral rites when a rescue team spotted him descending towards base camp.
The guide was taken by helicopter to a hospital in Kathmandu, where he spoke to the BBC as he received treatment for dehydration, frostbite and a fracture.
"I didn't think I would survive," he told the BBC Nepal Service on Friday. "I thought I was going to die," he admitted.
Climber Chris Thrall was the last person to see Dawa Sherpa before the rescue. The meeting took place near the famous Khumbu Icefall, on Thursday (4).
The former British soldier reported that the 57-year-old man was sitting on his own backpack just above Camp 3, at around 7,500 meters of altitude, "as he had done hundreds of times before to get some rest".
Thrall continued descending alone between 50 and 100 meters, according to his calculations, before finding another member of the group, a Polish climber without oxygen and in a severe state of frostbite. "Immediately, my attention turned to the weakest of the group. And that's when everything changed," he told the BBC.
"As I looked up, helping this man down, Dawa Sherpa appeared not to have moved. And he certainly wasn't coming down, because we would have seen his head torch," he said.
Trapped in a crevasse
Dawa Sherpa (left), who was feared to have died somewhere on the world's highest mountain, managed to escape save.
Sagarnatga Pollution Control Committee (SPCC) via BBC
Dawa Sherpa told the BBC that he went through very difficult times. "When the oxygen ran out, I couldn't walk," he explained.
"I didn't eat anything for the first two days. Then, I started chewing ice. My teeth hurt. I chewed hard," the guide reported.
Then Sherpa found chocolates in his clothes pockets and managed to drink some melted ice.
The guide began to descend the mountain slowly, but fell into a crevasse, according to two people who spoke to him about his experience. He was trapped there for two and a half days, unable to find a way out.
Then an avalanche dragged snow into the crevasse, giving him his first hope in days.
"When I stepped on the snow, I stood up and looked up... I felt like I could get out of there," he told the BBC.
After managing to get out of the crevasse with a lot of effort, he found ropes that helped him down. A new avalanche almost stopped him in his tracks, but he was determined to continue. "I managed to cross the snow and went down. I walked all night. Then, I approached the base camp," he said.
It was there that he saw the first people in almost a week. "Some boys were going up to collect the trash. I met them, and they carried me down the mountain", he narrated.
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The news caused commotion and joy in the Sherpa community, among his expedition colleagues and his family.
Five people died during this year's climbing season. Since records began in the 1920s, more than 300 people have died on Everest.
Pemba Sherpa, executive director of 8K Expeditions, the company that coordinated the searches, classified the feat as a "true self-rescue".
"Dawa managed to survive against all odds for days.

It's a true miracle," he said.
When Thrall first saw comments on social media that Dawa Sherpa - also known as Hillary Dawa Sherpa, after the famous climber Edmund Hillary - had been found alive, he thought it was spam.
"It's unbelievable: one minute I was holding back tears with his daughter, and the next minute I saw him crawling into the village," Thrall told the BBC. "It's absolutely incredible, indescribable," he added.
The wife (right) and the guide's daughter (left) remain in hospital awaiting medical discharge.
Prabin Ranabhat/ AFP via Getty Images
The guide's wife, Damu Sherpa, told the BBC that she had given up hope when the expedition company informed her that rescue was impossible and that the family had begun the funeral rites.
"When I saw him for the first time, I was very surprised. I was distressed after we were told he would never come home. I can't believe he came back alive," she said. "I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw he came back safe and sound."
"I wonder how long he survived without food and supplies... I can't understand how my husband managed to eat and drink at such an altitude. I hope no one has to go through this," he said.
Damu Sherpa added that the Nepali government should ensure that similar incidents do not happen again.
"He recognized me... he is fine and he is talking. We are happy," said the guide's daughter, Mhendo Lhamo Sherpa, to Reuters, after visiting him.
Doctors at HAMS Hospital in Kathmandu said that Dawa Sherpa receives full care in the ICU. His condition is stable and dehydration is improving significantly.
More than a thousand people have reached the top of Everest this season, the busiest in history.

Source: G1

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