Watch dramatic vid showing shivering & purple-faced Brit climber stuck on icy ledge at 21,000ft with ‘no hope’ of rescue
THIS is the chilling footage of a shivering, purple-faced Brit trapped 21,000ft up a mountain after getting caught in a snowstorm.
Fay Manners, 37, went missing in northern India alongside her American pal Michelle Dvorak, 31, last week with the women left with almost “no faith” that they’d ever be discovered.
The women spent 55 hours and two nights in horror conditions up the Chaukhamba III mountain as they prayed to be rescued.
A deathly snowstorm battered the region as the pair attempted to become the first people to summit the 23,000ft mountain.
Fay and Michelle lost a bag in the torrid weather as it plunged down into a rocky ravine – leaving their essentials like food, a tent and climbing equipment lost forever.
The dramatic footage was filmed by a shivering Fay as the duo sat stranded.
Fay can be heard saying in the horror video: “No sign of a rescue and we’re really f***ing cold.
“It’s snowing. No food and water. At the moment we can’t get off of the mountain.”
She can be seen turning purple in the face during the short clip as the weather continued to take its toll.
The pair were forced to share a sleeping bag with many of Fay’s clothes lost down the ravine, forcing her to stay in her wet and freezing climbing gear.
Rescue teams were deployed with the women saying they could see and hear the helicopters on several occasions despite it not being able to spot them.
They were only found on Saturday October 5, when a team of French mountaineers stumbled across them and alerted the authorities.
After the miracle rescue Fay told The Telegraph she thought she was going to freeze, starve or fall to her death as the hours ticked by.
She revealed that by the second night the two women were “barely surviving”.
Fay added: “I felt hypothermic, constantly shaking and with the lack of food my body was running out of energy to keep warm.
“Saturday morning came, we both barely survived the night.
“The helicopter flew past again but couldn’t see us. We were destroyed and we were losing faith.”
Fay first realised they were in serious danger during the climb when six days in one of their climbing ropes severed.
They were just 2,300ft below the summit when a sudden rockfall sliced the climbing gear that was helping to haul up their rucksack.
Inside the bag was the pair’s tent and stove as well as bundles of warm clothes and climbing equipment like ice axes and crampons.
Losing those items left both women fearing they may fall, starve or freeze to death up the mountain.
Fay said: “I watched the bag tumble down the mountain and I immediately knew the consequence of what was to come.”
After realising the severity of their situation the women decided to stay put on a ledge so they were at least safe for a few days.
Fay had sent a frantic message with Michelle back to the base camp saying they were in trouble as the pair hoped to be rescued.
A desperate search was launched with choppers scouring the snow-capped mountainous region for any sign of the experienced climbers.
But the arctic weather became so bad overnight that the search had to be suspended.
Fay described the conditions as “brutal”.
But when all hope seemed lost, a trio of French climbers who planned on scaling the very same route miraculously found the woman.
Palin Clovis, Jacques Olivier Chevallier and Vivien Berlaud gave up on their own climbing ambitions when they heard about Fay and Michelle as they started to help look for the ladies.
I felt hypothermic, constantly shaking and with the lack of food my body was running out of energy to keep warm
Fay Manners
Fay said: “As we were abseiling down on Saturday we could see a team of climbers coming up the mountain towards us.
“When we reached them, they said they were there to help us and I cried with relief knowing we might survive.
“They supported us to get across the steep glacier that would have been impossible without our equipment, crampons and ice axes.
“They gave us their tent and sleeping bags, gave us water and food and finally told the helicopter where to come and collect us.”
On Sunday morning at around 7am local time the two women were picked up by an Indian air force chopper on the Panpatia Bank Glacier and airlifted to the town of Joshimath.
Col Madan Gurung, who helped with the rescue operation, said the women were “exhausted” when he first saw them but “perfectly fine”.
At 7am local time on Sunday 6, (2.30am BST), an Indian air force helicopter landed at 5,300 metres above sea level on the Panpatia Bank Glacier and airlifted Ms Manners and Ms Dvorak to safety in Joshimath, a town 21 miles to the south-east.
Col Madan Gurung, who co-ordinated the rescue operation for the Indian Mountaineering Foundation (IMF), said the women were found to be “exhausted” but in otherwise “perfectly fine” health.
Fay, from Bedford, is an pro alpinist who looks to “inspire women to pursue their interest” in mountaineering.
She moved from the UK to the Alps to follow her passion in the outdoor sport.
Her impressive climbing history includes making the first female ascent on the Phantom Direct route on the south face of the Grand Jorasses, according to her website.
She is now set to spend some time in New Delhi where she hopes to eat, relax and sleep as much as possible.
Despite the scary experience up the mountain Fay says she will continue to scale more in the future after some time off.
Michelle is also a very experienced climber and is a teaching assistant at the University of Washington, according to her Facebook.