A mountaineer who spent six days dragging himself off Mount Everest after being abandoned has been moved out of intensive care as he slowly recovers, his family said.
His improbable survival has sparked celebration among fellow climbers, but also anger from family members and the mountaineering community over the failure to locate him sooner.
Dawa Sherpa, 57, disappeared in brutal conditions on the upper slopes of the world’s tallest mountain on May 30 during one of the final climbs of the spring season.
He was found on Thursday morning, crawling towards Base Camp, and airlifted to Kathmandu, where doctors are treating him for frostbite, severe dehydration and a fractured thigh bone.
“He has been shifted from the ICU (intensive care unit) to the ward and treatment is ongoing – he is able to speak a little and is eating,” his relative Nuru Sherpa said.
Left stranded in freezing temperatures near Everest’s “death zone”, where oxygen levels are critically low, Dawa said he survived for days with almost no food or water.
Dawa, also known as “Hillary” like legendary climber Edmund Hillary, told others after his rescue that he had fallen into a crevasse.
But he crawled on and was found still slowly moving towards the Base Camp by the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee, a Nepali team that helps set routes on Everest and clean up waste that’s left behind.
“There has been negligence in his case,” Maya Sherpa, president of the Everest Summiteers Association, said yesterday.
“An investigation has to take place to find out what exactly happened so that such incidents are not repeated.” — AFP
