Kerryman survives 36 hours on ice ledge

Danny O’Sullivan was trapped on an icy ledge 5,500 feet above ground, but survived by digging a cave in the snow.

By Declan Whooley

The Kerry climber spent 36 hours, along with a French colleague, on the side of Mount Crosscut in New Zealand as they waited desperately for help.

The Star reveals that it could have ended much worse when a chopper left the scene after mistakenly thinking the two men were okay.

The carpenter has been living in Queenstown for the past few years and is an avid climber. At the end of this climb, weather conditions deteriorated and the two men decided to stay put as to continue to descend would be too risky.

They were rescued when they spotted a van in an alcove in the distance and waved their red emergency shelter.

“That’s just the nature of it. It’s not good, though it was a learning curve,” he conceded.

Local police said afterwards the men made the correct decision to stay put in those conditions, but Murphy knows that valuable lessons were learned.

“It just makes you realise you have a lot to learn. You may as well take some lessons out of it,” he told the paper.

All’s well that ends well.