Missing Sherpa guide found alive after six days, airlifted to HAMS Hospital

KATHMANDU: A Nepali mountain guide who had been missing for nearly a week on Mount Everest has been found alive.

Dawa Sherpa, a guide from Okhaldhunga, went out of contact on the evening of May 29 near Camp III after his Polish client abandoned a summit attempt due to frostbite at the South Col.

Multiple sources say Dawa, who was behind his Polish client while descending, was reportedly left alone near Camp III as the rest of the team moved down.

As a helicopter search for him began on Thursday, staff members from the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee (SPCC), an agency responsible for garbage management in the Everest region, located Dawa near Crampon Point, near the Khumbu Icefall, and slowly crawled down toward the Base Camp.

They carried Dawa to Gorakshep from where a chopper airlifted him to Kathmandu.

Captain Bibek Khadka, who airlifted Dawa to HAMS Hospital, described Dawa’s escape from the mountain as miraculous. “It was nothing short of a miracle that Dawa, after being missing for seven days, managed to walk down through the Khumbu Icefall and reach Base Camp. I feel truly privileged to have been part of his rescue, assisting him from Gorakshep and transporting him safely to HAMS Hospital for further care,” he wrote in a social media post. “I wish him a full and speedy recovery.”