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30 May 2006, 16:43

KATHMANDU, Nepal, May 29 (UPI) -- Lincoln Hall, the Australian climber who survived a night in the open near the summit of Mount Everest, left base camp Monday in the back of a jeep. He was expected to arrive in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, on Tuesday, and could return to Sydney in a few days after further medical treatment, the Daily Telegraph reported.

Hall collapsed last Thursday as he descended from the summit. His teammates decided he was beyond help, but a U.S. climber found him still alive the next day and his team sent a group up from the North Col to bring him down.

"He does realize he has been very, very lucky, surprisingly lucky," Jamie McGuiness, another climber, told The Daily Telegraph from Everest Base Camp. "He was very close to death, but he wasn`t actually dead and he came around."

Hall was suffering from pneumonia and frostbite and could lose some of his extremities to amputation.

Copyright 2006 by United Press International