Video: Nepali sherpa rescues climber from death zone of Mount Everest

In an extraordinary feat, a Nepali sherpa rescued a Malaysian climber from the “death zone” of Mount Everest, which is the area above 8,000m on the world’s tallest peak.

According to a report in The Independent, 36-year-old Gelje Sherpa was on his way to the summit with a Chinese client on May 18 when he saw a Malaysian mountaineer who was unable to move and was shivering in the extreme cold.

Gelje rose to the occasion and carried the climber on his back for close to six hours and brought him down to a lower camp for medical aid. The rescue is seen as a  “very rare” accomplishment at an altitude where atmospheric oxygen is so low that cells in the human body start dying without extra oxygen support.

Gelja posted a video on Instagram and narrated a first hand account of the incident: “You may all be wondering where is the summit photo? Unfortunately, no summit yet. At the Balcony during our summit push around 8,300m I saw someone in danger. A man who needed rescuing and no one else was helping. I made the decision to cancel our clients summit push so that I could bring him down to safety before he died up there alone. I carried him myself all the way down to Camp 4 where a rescue team helped from then on. I will be back up the mountain soon after regaining energy from a huge task but I am so happy to say he is alive and recovering in hospital.”