AN ice climber who fell more than 200 feet down Britain’s highest mountain has spoken of his astonishing survival as he returned to work within weeks of the accident.

Nick Harper, 57, of Sheriff Hutton, was climbing near the summit of Ben Nevis when he fell the equivalent of the height of York Minster – slipping from a ledge, skidding down an ice fall, hitting rocks near to his climbing partner, Robin Clothier, before being thrown into a gully.

Although two of the three ice screws securing their ropes came out of the ice, possibly due to it being too damp, a third stopped his fall.

Mr Harper suffered two skull fractures, collapsed lungs, 13 cracked ribs and a broken pelvis, and said his life was saved by the mountain rescue team which reached him in a helicopter in difficult conditions about two-and-a-half hours after the fall.

He was then transferred with a doctor to the Belford Hospital in Fort William before being transferred by helicopter with two trauma nurses to Western Infirmary in Glasgow.

Mr Harper, who does not remember the accident, has pieced together what happened from his climbing partner.

He said: “I’m assuming I let go of the axes, my footsteps collapsed and away I went. I left my axes stuck in the ice.

“I went haring down. Presumably, I slid initially because, at that sort of angle, you slide rather than fall.

“I got somewhere near where Robin was at the bottom of the pitch, hit the rocks and bounced out into the gully. There I was, lying head down, not moving.

“When Robin reached me, I was groaning a lot. He established I was still alive so he and another couple of guys in the gully dug a platform out of the snow. They pulled me on to it and got me lying on my back.”

A call was made to Lochaber Mountain Rescue who reached the area after two hours and then had to climb to Mr Harper, putting him on a stretcher and lowering him down to the helicopter.

Mr Harper said he owed his survival following the fall on January 14 to the mountain rescue and medical teams and doctors Brian Tregaskis and David Sedgwick, of Belford Hospital.

He said: “I had been laid out for two hours. It was not particularly cold but you don’t last forever when you are injured like I was.

“My life was in their hands. Whether someone else has got a hand over it I don’t know but those are the guys who did the deed - they got me off the hill and to hospital. I owe them my life.

“The medical services and A&E guys are phenomenal. Without them I would just be another casualty.”

Mr Harper was transferred to York Hospital in February and was discharged recently.

He is currently walking with crutches and undergoing physiotherapy to help his recovery but has recuperated sufficiently to return to his work as director of Harpers Environmental Services in Sutton-on-the-Forest.

He thanked well-wishers after receiving about 100 cards.

Mr Harper said he was unsure whether he would be able to climb again or whether he would choose to after the stress it has put on his family - wife Judi and daughters Nina and Claire.

“My wife has been rock-solid but I know how stressed she has been. Whether it’s fair to put someone through that is another matter,” he said.

Nina said about the fall: “Initially, time slowed down, really. A day was like a week and a week was like a month. It all feels a lot more normal now. It’s a huge relief.”