[EPA]
[EPA]

A Sherpa guide presumed dead after going missing for six days on Mount Everest has been rescued alive — just as his family was holding funeral rites in his honor.

A search team recovered Dawa Sherpa, 52, a Nepali mountain guide, near the Khumbu Icefall on Thursday, according to AFP and other international news agencies.

Also known as "Hillary Dawa" after the legendary mountaineer Edmund Hillary, he had last been seen on May 29 before all contact was lost.

He was last spotted in the "Yellow Band" section above Camp 3 at an altitude of 7,200 meters — a stretch notorious as the "death zone," where prolonged human survival is considered nearly impossible. After helicopter search teams also failed to locate him, the mountaineering community and his family concluded he had died.

His family had been conducting traditional funeral ceremonies in the Nepali capital Kathmandu. On the second day of those rites, word arrived that Dawa had been found alive.

His wife, Damu Sherpa, said she was overjoyed when she heard the news. "I had given up hope," she said. "Yesterday we even held a puja — a prayer for the dead."

His daughter, Mendo Lamu Sherpa, said she could not believe it at first. "When I first heard my father was alive, I asked them to send a photo," she said. "Only after I saw the picture and confirmed it was really him did I finally feel relieved and happy."

Dawa suffered frostbite on both hands when he was found, but his overall condition was reported to be stable. After receiving emergency treatment on site, he was airlifted to a hospital in Kathmandu, where he was reunited with his family.

Ang Tsering Sherpa, a veteran figure in Nepal's mountaineering community, called the survival "nothing short of a miracle." "Without the extraordinary physical and mental toughness unique to Sherpas who grew up in the mountains, an ordinary person would not have survived," he said.

Meanwhile, at least five people have died on Everest this season — two Indian climbers and three Nepali workers involved in expedition support operations. More than 1,000 climbers reached the summit this year, making it the busiest season on record.


rainbow@heraldcorp.com