Fundraisers pledge £1,650 to Sherpa after he saved Northamptonshire man in Everest avalanche

Tony McMurray of Towcester has planned a week of a lifetime for Nepalese Sherpa, Sukman for his first ever trip to the UK including a three-day excursion to London after he flew to stay at their family home Northamptonshire on Sunday.

Sukman’s one-week stay started with a special ‘Evening with Tony, Ellis and Sukman’, on Sunday, (June, 4) at the Saracens Head Hotel in Towcester.

Both intrepid explorers and their friend, Ellis, another mountaineer, appeared on stage in front of more than 100 people and each told of their own unique journies to Everest in 2015, as well as what it was like to experience a quake on the highest mountain on earth.

Mr McMurray said: “The theme of the night was centred around the stories of Ellis and Sukman and I and my story took the audience through my years of fundraising leading up to April 2015.

"I then handed over to Ellis who enthralled us all with pictures and stories of a 20-year journey in his attempt to climb Mount Everest but it was Sukman’s story that had many in the audience in tears.

"Images of his very humble surroundings in Nepal where he works tirelessly to support his two ageing parents, a wife and four children, all devastated by the effects the quake had on their village."

The evening also included an auction of goods with £1,650 of proceeds raised, going towards Sukman’s continued village rebuild after it was destroyed by the avalanche in 2015.

Towcester businessman Mr McMurray was leaving Mount Everest base camp when his whole world shook around him on April 25, 2015.

He added: "What I did not realise at the time was that I was up on the highest mountain in the world during the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that hit Nepal killing 9,000 people and injuring more than 22,000 others."

During the "harrowing" days that followed, Tony and his team experienced the highs and lows of evacuation from a natural disaster and had to rely on the skill of Sukman, who did not know if his own family had survived.

To Sukman’s surprise this week, Tony had even managed to gather other friends who met the Sherpa over years trekking in Nepall.

These are people, whom he had saved alongside Tony and a wide selection of friends and family of Tony who had come to thank the man who had brought Tony home alive.