A TOP British climber has broken her silence for the first time since she was rescued after getting stuck in a snowstorm 23,000ft up a mountain.
Fay Manners, 37, went missing in northern India alongside her American pal Michelle Dvorak, 31, earlier this week as they pair have revealed how they feared they would die in the -15C temperatures.
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The women spent 55 hours and two nights in the horror conditions praying to be rescued after getting trapped up the Chaukhamba III mountain.
A terrifying snowstorm battered the region on Thursday as the pair attempted to become the first people to summit the Himalayan mountain.
Fay and Michelle’s bags – containing essentials like food, their tent and climbing equipment – vanished down a ravine as the weather took a turn.
Leaving them with only a sleeping bag each and very little supplies.
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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 when a team of French mountaineers stumbled across them and alerted the authorities.
Fay told The Telegraph the pair being found was a “small miracle”.
The professional climber revealed that she thought she was going to freeze, starve or fall to her death as the hours ticked by.
With her and Michelle at one point being forced to attempt to cross the steep glaciers without their equipment.
The ladies knew such a perilous trek was likely to have disastrous results due to the lack of protective safety gear.
Fay first realised they were in serious danger six days into the climb when they were 2,300ft below the summit as a sudden rockfall left one of their climbing ropes severed.
The rope was helping to haul up their rucksack as it tumbled down the mountain, never to be seen again.
Inside 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.
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A desperate search was launched with choppers scouring the snow-capped mountainous region for any sign of the experienced climbers.
But on Friday the search had to be suspended due to the arctic weather conditions and the high altitude, a source told The Sun.
Overnight the two slept in a double sleeping bag as they huddled together to get as much warmth as possible between them.
Fay recalled by the second night: “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.”
The two brave climbers began to make their way back down the mountain fearing they had no other option.
Fay described the conditions as “brutal” on Saturday.
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.
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 (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.
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