He was crawling back toward the place where help existed
Nas encostas do pico mais alto do mundo, onde a morte raramente devolve o que toma, um guia nepalês chamado Dawa Sherpa — apelidado Hillary, em honra ao lendário alpinista — foi encontrado vivo seis dias após desaparecer no Evereste, a rastejar em direção ao campo base. A sua família já havia iniciado as orações fúnebres quando chegou a notícia que transformou o luto em espanto. O seu regresso, improvável e silencioso, lembra-nos que a montanha, por vezes, guarda os seus segredos apenas por um tempo.
- Dawa Sherpa desapareceu nas primeiras horas de 30 de maio no Evereste, numa altitude onde cada hora sem abrigo pode ser a última.
- Durante seis dias, as equipas de resgate perderam o rasto e a família começou os rituais de morte, convencida de que a montanha o havia reclamado para sempre.
- Uma equipa de limpeza de rotas encontrou-o a gatinhar — consciente, mas devastado pelo frio, com geladura severa, desidratação e choque traumático.
- Foi transportado de helicóptero para Katmandu, onde médicos de cuidados intensivos trabalham agora para reconstruir um corpo que sobreviveu ao que quase ninguém sobrevive.
- A filha só acreditou quando lhe enviaram uma fotografia; a mulher, que já havia dito adeus, recebeu de volta um futuro que julgava perdido.
Um guia de montanha nepalês, já chorado pela família e dado como morto pelo Evereste, foi encontrado vivo na quinta-feira à tarde perto do campo base — a rastejar, mas ainda a lutar. Dawa Sherpa, conhecido como Hillary em homenagem ao lendário Edmund Hillary, tinha desaparecido nas primeiras horas de 30 de maio, algures nas encostas do pico mais alto do mundo. Foi uma equipa de limpeza de rotas que o encontrou, a mover-se de mãos e joelhos pela neve, seis dias depois.
A descoberta surpreendeu todos. Pemba Sherpa, coordenador das operações de resgate, resumiu o momento com três palavras: "Estava a rastejar." Seis dias no frio extremo do Evereste é uma sentença que poucos corpos resistem. O facto de Hillary ter permanecido consciente e capaz de se mover é, para os médicos que o receberam em Katmandu, algo difícil de explicar.
No Hospital HAMS, o médico intensivista Nishant Dhakal descreveu as lesões: geladura, trauma pelo frio, desidratação, choque. Hillary respondia a vozes e perguntas, mas o estado era grave o suficiente para manter os médicos em alerta, com a recuperação a medir-se em semanas.
Em casa, a mulher Damu Sherpa já havia iniciado o puja — as orações pelos mortos. Quando o telefone tocou com a notícia de que ele estava vivo, o luto transformou-se em incredulidade e depois em alívio. "Tínhamos perdido toda a esperança", disse ela. "Ficámos tão felizes ao ouvir a notícia."
A filha, Mendo Lhamu Sherpa, só acreditou quando a equipa de resgate enviou fotografias. Quando reconheceu o rosto do pai na imagem, algo nela cedeu. "Senti uma alegria imensa", disse. Era a colisão de dois futuros — o em que o pai tinha morrido e o em que não tinha — a resolver-se, de forma improvável, num único presente. O que aconteceu a Hillary durante esses seis dias na montanha continua sem resposta. A montanha devolveu-o, e isso, por si só, é quase um milagre.
A Nepalese mountain guide who vanished into the snow six days earlier, already mourned by his family and presumed lost to the mountain, crawled back into the world on Thursday afternoon near Everest's base camp. Dawa Sherpa—known as Hillary, after the legendary climber Edmund Hillary—disappeared in the predawn hours of May 30 somewhere on the world's highest peak. A cleanup crew working to map routes and remove debris across the mountain found him moving on his hands and knees, still alive, still fighting.
The discovery came as a shock to everyone involved in the search. Pemba Sherpa, coordinating rescue efforts for 8K Expeditions, told international news agencies simply: "He was crawling." Six days in the Everest cold is a sentence most people do not survive. The body shuts down. The mind follows. Yet Hillary had somehow held on, moving himself back toward the place where help existed, one painful movement at a time.
A helicopter lifted him from the mountain and carried him to Kathmandu, where doctors at HAMS Hospital began the work of bringing him back. Nishant Dhakal, an intensive care physician, described the injuries with clinical precision: frostbite, cold trauma, dehydration, shock. Hillary was conscious. He could respond to voices and questions. But the damage was severe enough that he would remain in intensive care, undergoing further tests, his recovery measured in days and weeks rather than hours.
At home, his wife Damu Sherpa had already begun the rituals of grief. The family had started puja—prayers for the dead—convinced that the mountain had taken him. When the phone call came with news that he had been found alive, the shift from mourning to hope happened in an instant. "We had lost all hope," she said. "We were so happy to hear the news." The words carry the weight of someone who had already said goodbye.
Their daughter, Mendo Lhamu Sherpa, described the moment of confirmation differently—as a kind of disbelief that slowly became real. When the rescue team sent photographs to prove they had found him, when the face in the image matched the face she knew, something in her broke open. "I felt immense joy," she said. The emotion was not simple relief. It was the collision of two futures—the one where her father was gone, and the one where he was not—finally resolving into a single, improbable reality.
What happened to Hillary during those six days on the mountain remains unclear. How he survived the cold, the altitude, the isolation—these are questions that will take time to answer. For now, he is in a hospital bed in Kathmandu, his body healing from wounds that should have been fatal, his family trying to adjust to a second chance they had already surrendered. The mountain gave him back, which is something it almost never does.
Citações Notáveis
He was crawling— Pemba Sherpa, 8K Expeditions
We had lost all hope. We were so happy to hear the news.— Damu Sherpa, Hillary's wife
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
How does someone survive six days on Everest? The cold alone should be enough.
That's the question everyone is asking. We don't have the full picture yet—he was found crawling, which means he was moving, which means some part of him refused to stop. Maybe he found shelter. Maybe his body simply held on longer than the odds suggested it would.
His family had already started funeral prayers. That's a specific kind of grief.
Yes. In that tradition, you don't wait for certainty. You begin the rituals because the mountain takes people, and you prepare yourself for that loss. Then the phone call comes and you have to hold two truths at once—that he was dead, and that he isn't.
What does it mean that a cleanup crew found him, not a rescue team?
It speaks to how vast the mountain is, how many people are moving across it at any given time. The official search may have looked in one place while he was crawling toward another. Sometimes survival is about being in the right place when someone happens to be looking.
Will he climb again?
That's unknowable right now. His body has to heal first—the frostbite alone can be devastating. But guides like Hillary, they know the mountain in a way most people don't. Whether he returns to it is a question only he can answer once he's whole again.