By Xinhua
Kathmandu : A Nepali woman who escaped Mt. Qomolangma's (Mt. Everest) "death zone" with little more than frostbite last week said her rescuers saved her life after finding her sick and unconscious some 8,500 meters up the mountain, The Himalayan Times reported Monday.
It took a team of mountaineers and precision planning to get 22-year-old Usha Bista back to base camp after they discovered her at 8,500 meters suffering from cerebral edema, which can be fatal if left untreated at a high altitude.
"I will never forget them. They are like god to me, they gave me a second life," Bista was quoted by the daily as saying in Kathmandu.
"I am thankful to these people because of whom I am here safe and alive. I am indebted to these people for life," she said
She has frostbite on two fingers and several toes but no other injuries or damage.
Bista was on her way to the summit on May 21 when she fell sick and collapsed.
She remembers two foreigners and a Nepali Sherpa guide — although already exhausted from their climb to the summit — who stopped to help her.
Her rescue team actually comprised four foreign climbers and three Sherpas, Ang Tshering Sherpa, president of Nepal Mountaineering Association, said.
The final and most difficult part of Mt. Qomolangma climb — the area above the South Col — is nicknamed the "death zone." Rescues at that altitude are difficult because of the thin air, high winds, treacherous icy slopes and exhaustion.
The rescuers were able to get Bista to the third camp, at 7,400 meters, where a team of British medical researchers gave her first aid.
More Sherpas helped her to the base camp from where a helicopter delivered her to a hospital in Kathmandu.
Bista claimed her Sherpa guide left her when she fell sick, and that her team leader abandoned her at South Col on the last leg of the journey.
The Nepal Mountaineering Association is investigating her claims, according to Tshering.