Survivor of avalanche recounts scary moments on Mount Everest

KATMANDU, Nepal -- Pierre Bourdeau was tucked into his sleeping bag on Mount Everest when the avalanche struck. It plowed through his tent with chunks of ice, threw him 100 yards down the slope and buried him beneath a mound of snow.

Somehow, he lived.

"I thought I was dead when I got hit on the head. All I could think was which piece will kill me," Bourdeau, an accountant from Montreal, said on Sunday.

Still in the sleeping bag, Bourdeau raised his hand above the settling snow and felt air, realizing with relief he was not going to suffocate. In the next tent, his Sherpa guide Durga suffered severe back injuries.

At least five people were injured but no one was killed in Thursday's avalanche, which swept through the first of four bivouacs set up between Everest's base camp and the mountain's 29,035-foot summit. Climbers set up the camps on the summit trail, stocking them with food, sleeping bags and oxygen tanks for the climb.

Snow and wind prevented a rescue helicopter from reaching the group for two days.

Bourdeau, Durga and three others -- including a fellow Canadian and two Americans -- were evacuated by helicopter Saturday to the capital Katmandu from the base camp.

They received initial first aid treatment at a makeshift hospital at base camp for injuries ranging from bruises to possible broken ankles and fingers to Durga's back problem.

Though smaller avalanches are common on the mountain, climbers did not expect the big one to fall on their camp.

The avalanche destroyed about 50 tents at Camp One, which is spread across a 400-by-200 yard area.

Soon after the snow mass settled, members of an Iranian expedition -- including a doctor -- approached Bourdeau. They put the injured climbers in undamaged tents to warm them up and prevent frostbite.

Bourdeau was so cold "it took two hours to stop shaking," he said.

Twenty-three expeditions have attempted to scale Everest this spring amid treacherous conditions.

Michael O'Brien, 39, of Seattle fell to his death May 1 at the Khumbu Icefall as he and his brother Chris, 32, were returning to base camp. Sean Egan, 63, a Canadian, died on the mountain April 29 after an apparent heart attack.

Since New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay first conquered Everest on May 29, 1953, more than 1,400 people have scaled the mountain. About 180 have died on its unpredictable slopes.

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