Dean was a hero in the end, but he's not coming home Everest avalanche guide tells of Australian's death An exhausted Dean Higgins had to be pulled from the mountain in a sleeping bag after digging through snow for six hours to free he and his wife, says Everest guide Penba Tashi. PT2M11S http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/action/externalEmbeddedPlayer?id=d-2vp2x 620 349 October 18, 2013 - 5:21AM Trapped in the icy confines of their collapsed tent after being hit by an avalanche on Mount Everest, Dean Higgins scraped through thick snow with his bare hands for six hours to extricate himself and his wife from a certain death. But in what so nearly was a remarkable tale of against-the-odds survival, Mr Higgins, 60, died, exhausted and exposed to the elements, less than an hour after being evacuated to the relative safety of a nearby village on Tuesday. Three Tibetan guides also died after being buried in the avalanche. I think there was a couple of minutes of air left, I couldn't breathe. I felt like I was a second away from dying. His distraught wife, Wendy Higgins, has hailed her husband a hero, describing in dramatic detail how close she came to losing her own life, if it wasn't for her husband. Trekking: Dean and Wendy Higgins. "Dean was a hero in the end, unfortunately he's not coming home with us," she said. But he basically saved my life, I know that. He was so wet and cold, his eyes were half-open and glazed. I put him in bed ... he was starting to warm up. And then he stopped. He died in my arms, basically. They had been trekking for a week along the eastern face of the mountain in Tibet before their travelling party, which included Australian friends Barry and Susan Simes and six Tibetan guides, encountered unseasonably heavy snow and camped near the Langmala pass for the night. Mount Everest. After being woken by a loud noise early on Tuesday morning, the couple were shocked to find their tent had caved in under thick snow, leaving them pinned against the ground, barely able to move. "My legs were trapped under him and his legs were trapped under snow," Mrs Higgins said. It was a metre by a metre space, maybe 20 inches deep. "We laid there for a while and nothing happened, no one came to help ... " she said. I kept saying 'they think we're dead'. It was just deathly silent. Where the avalanche hit. They were also fast running out of air before Mr Higgins managed to rip a hole in the tent, and began scraping to safety, a handful of snow at a time. I felt like I was a second away from dying," Mrs Higgins said. I really don't know how we had this pocket of air or pocket of space and in the end we could see light. It took about six hours and he could sort of move a bit and it took another hour to turn himself around and to get in a position to push himself out. The main Tibetan tour guide, Penba Tashi, said one of his staff was swept 50 metres down the mountain by the avalanche while trying to help. "About four or five o'clock we hear outside ... people calling us," he said. And then one of our members, the cook, went out to try to save them. Suddenly, an avalanche happened from our mountain to our campsite and he was taken about 50 metres down ... he was yelling. Mr Tashi rushed to the nearest village and more than 45 herdsmen came to the group's aid. They carried a weakened Mr Higgins down the mountain in a sleeping bag. But after the six-hour trek, Mr Higgins took a severe turn for the worse. "When he got there he was breathing but he couldn't talk," Mr Tashi said. We put him into bed and put hot water [bottles around him] ... [but] after 45 minutes he stopped breathing and he passed away. Mr Higgins" daughter, 24-year-old Sara, said her father was a devoted and loving father and husband who loved travelling, animals and playing squash. She said he gave up running a pet shop to support Wendy, when she started a Mortgage Choice franchise. She would go on to become one of Adelaide's most successful mortgage brokers because of his support. "He's amazing; I can't really say too much more," she said. He was pretty much a stay-home Dad during [my] primary and high school. We were pretty close. Tour operator Longda International Travel said the Langmala trail was particularly popular with adventure travellers but was only open during September and October because of heavy snow and rain during other times of the year. The travel agency's manager Jampa denied early Chinese media reports that his company was running illegal tours in the area, saying he had all the required permits and would run several tours through the pass each year. Consular officials in Beijing have been assisting the surviving Australians, who were due to cross the Nepalese border on Thursday afternoon, before flying home to Australia.