Prakash MATHEMA /AFP via Getty Images

Nepali mountaineer Dawa Sherpa spent three days trapped in a crevasse on Mount Everest, surviving on biscuits, chocolate, and pieces of ice, while his family at home had already started to believe he had died.

Sherpa himself had nearly given up hope of rescue, until an avalanche thundered into the 25-foot deep ice crack, filling it with snow and creating a route to freedom, News.Az reports, citing CBS news.

"I am very happy to be back, I thought I would die there," Sherpa, 57, told AFP, giving his first full account of his dramatic self-rescue, as he recovers in an apartment in Kathmandu with his family.

He had clawed his way out of the crevasse and crawled down the world's highest mountain with his frostbitten fingers, dragging his fractured leg and eventually nearly reaching Base Camp a week after he had been last seen.

Back home, monks had already begun performing last rite rituals for him, as his devout Buddhist wife and daughter mourned him, presuming him dead.

Initially, in the confusion of the rescue, it was reported he had been missing for six days, since May 30.

In fact, even more remarkably, Sherpa reckons he had collapsed exhausted a day earlier on May 29 — meaning he had been alone on the mountain for an entire week.

News.Az 

By Ulviyya Salmanli