In 17 May, Ang Temba Sherpa collapsed on descent from the summit of Chomolungma and was forced to spend the night at 8,600m while his team carried on down to the safety of Camp III.

At a time when news about the controversial death of a British climber and the amazing rescue of an Australian mountaineer dominates media headlines, the tale of Ang Temba Sherpa seems to be forgotten.

Ang Temba has been speaking about his ordeal and told us he just wanted to sit down for a quick rest as he felt exhausted coming down from the summit, which he reached at 12.22 PM.

"I must have fallen asleep as when I woke up it was dark and I had run out of oxygen," he recalls. "I couldn't carry on down as the batteries of my headlamp were flat and it was too dark."

In the meantime, Ang Temba's team, which consisted of four Japanese climbers and two other Sherpas, were expecting their leader, who had fallen behind on the descent down the north side of the mountain.

"The team thought Ang Temba would walk into camp shortly but he fell asleep out of exhaustion," says Dinesh K Magar, the team's trekking agent, who was at Advanced Base Camp at the time.

DINESH MAGAR

AFTER THE STORM: Chomolungma from the north had a coating of new snow last month after the storm that nearly killed Ang Temba Sherpa (third from left, above).

At 4AMthe next morning, Pasang Tendi woke up and when he noticed that his uncle still had not arrived he started to cry. Meanwhile, Ang Temba, who had spent the night moving his fingers and toes to prevent frostbite, gathered his last strength and started to descend at dawn.

"When the sun came up I knew I had to move on in order to survive and even though three Tibetans told me they would bring me down after summiting, I did not wait for them and started walking," Ang Temba said.

At about 8AM an international team of mountaineers, who had abandoned their summit bid due to a sick member, found the exhausted Sherpa at 8,400m.

"When we came down we came across this guy who was all tangled up in the rope. He seemed very uncoordinated," said Phil Crampton, leader of the team. As Crampton was busy looking after one of his own clients who had developed celebral oedema, the team's sirdar Jangbu Sherpa helped his worn out compatriot down towards Camp III.

Even though he was left in the death zone overnight, Ang Temba has no hard feelings about his team. "Nobody could have come up from 8,300m to look for me on summit day," he said, "it would have been too tough for anybody," said Ang Temba, who is from Rolwaling and has a wife and two children. His fingers and legs were paralysed when he got to Base Camp on the Chinese side, from where he was rushed to Kathmandu.

Ang Temba got very ill on the road to Nepal and the team had nearly given up hope on his survival. He stayed in hospital in Kathmandu for nine days and recovered. "I had lost my memory completely. I did not recognise my wife or my two sons. It was horrible," he added. The Sherpa regained his memory after five days and miraculously didn't lose any of his fingers or toes.

The 46-year old does not think he wants to go back to climbing eight thousanders but he needs the money. "You earn much more on Everest than on smaller peaks," he says.