British man rescued from Mont Blanc on ‘ill equipped’ climb feared he was going to die

Rescuers say 26-year-old Feda Hussein was ‘dressed in a tracksuit’ for the difficult climb, reports Furvah Shah

Feda Hussein was photographed by rescuers as they attempted to save him on Sunday (SAV)

A British man who was rescued from Mont Blanc has said he feared he was going to die during the ordeal.

Feda Hussein, 26, an aerospace engineer from Portsmouth said he wanted to climb one of Europe’s tallest mountains for his birthday and feels “grateful to be alive”.

He was found on Sunday morning suffering from severe hypothermia and alpine rescuers say Mr Hussein was “ill equipped” for the climb as he was dressed unsuitable clothing with little tools.

Officials said he was wearing a tracksuit, hiking boots and his tent was a simple tarpaulin.

Mr Hussein said he was prepared for the climb but said scaling Monc Blanc “did look a bit silly” after he was found at 10,170ft by alpine rescue teams with his body temperature at 25C – the normal reading is 37C.

Mont Blanc is one of Europe’s highest mountains (AFP via Getty Images)

In an interview with The Times, Mr Hussein said: “It was my birthday, so for a present I planned to summit Mont Blanc and after that the Matterhorn while I had annual leave.”

“I was going straight, thinking ‘I can see the summit! I will be there’,” he continued. “I missed my exit because it was too dark. I came across this way that no one uses, and it was full of crevasses.

“There was a 50-metre ice wall. I looked down, put my rope down and tried to go back down and go the normal way, but it was impossible because it was vertical and my rope wouldn’t even reach half of it.”

After several hours of side-stepping crevasses, Mr Hussein said: “I fell in one, about 20 feet. I felt my right foot was twisted.”

He found a safe spot and called rescuers, who said they could not come due to the weather conditions. “At about 2am, I called them saying ‘I can’t make it’,” he said, adding that he thought he was going to die.

“I put my equipment in the tent because I couldn’t sleep with so much stuff in the sleeping bag. When I opened my eyes, I was in hospital.

“It did look a bit silly when I looked at it,” he added. “I’m grateful to be alive.”

Mont Blanc is 4,809 metres tall and it has the highest fatality rate of any mountain in Europe.

Mr Hussein had managed to raise the alarm by calling the Aosta Valley Alpine Rescue after he got stuck on the Bionnassay glacier at an altitude of 3,100 metres on Saturday afternoon.

A rescue mission was attempted by land on Saturday but did not succeed because of tricky weather conditions.

He was rushed to the emergency room of the Parini hospital in Aosta by helicopter in a serious condition.

“The man was equipped as a hiker and he did not have equipment and clothing suitable for progression on the glacier,” rescuers told local media.

He is now recovering in hospital and spoke to the press from his bed in the intensive care unit.