The "incredibly loud roar" of Mount Everest avalanche
Jim Davidson and his teammates were resting in their tents at Camp 1 of Mount Everest on Saturday, approximately 20,000 feet above ground, when they heard "an incredibly loud roar" and realized an avalanche was barreling toward them.
"Before we could get out of the tents, all of a sudden the tents started vertically bouncing up and down, like a life raft in the ocean. And we knew this was something extremely big," Davidson said Tuesday in a phone interview on "CBS This Morning."
Nepal's largest earthquake in more than 80 years triggered the deadly avalanche that nearly wiped out about 140 people trapped at Camps 1 and 2 on the mountain. Four Americans were among the 18 people who died in the disaster.
"By the time we got out of our tents, the roar of the first avalanche was getting closer and then we heard an avalanche come from the opposite direction, also ripping down towards our tent," Davidson said. "So we were quite scared with nowhere to run."
The roar was bigger than anything he'd ever heard.
"We couldn't see anything because we were in a cloud bank at the time, which made it even scarier. We just literally stood there, waiting for one or the other avalanche to come get us," Davidson said. "Fortunately, they ran out before they got to us by a couple hundred yards."
The climbing and Sherpa teams put together an "incredible" helicopter rescue, he said.
"It's so high that the helicopter has trouble flying, so it could only take two people, small baggage. There were no seat belts, there were no seats. We just sat on the floor of the helicopter and they landed us at base camp," Davidson said. "So flight by flight, after about 75 or 80 flights, they got all the people out of Camp 1 and Camp 2 yesterday."
Currently, he is among the dozens of climbers waiting for rescue at Mount Everest's base camp, about 17,300 feet above ground.
"We haven't had any aftershocks in probably about 36 hours, so we're very thankful for that. We're still pretty exposed here. The glacier is right next to us. And where the avalanche ripped to base camp couple of days ago is just 100 meters from where I'm standing, so it's still kind of a very sober place," Davidson said. "Almost everybody's had a traumatic experience, so a lot of prayers and PTSD feelings floating around."
He said they are now disassembling base camp and figuring out how to get to Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, which was also devastated by the quake.
"A lot of uncertainty about how long it's going to take to get out of the country," Davidson said.