'I got frostbite climbing Mount Everest - now I'm back treating my patients'

A dentist who suffered frostbite in seven of her fingers said she is "adjusting to the new normal" after summiting Everest last month.

Reaching the top of Mount Everest is a feat that relatively few Irish climbers have achieved, and Sarah Armstrong, from Crossmaglen, County Armagh, did just that on 20 May.

In recent weeks, several other climbers from across the island have successfully scaled the world's highest peak.

A remarkable achievement - but one that comes with serious risk. Armstrong, 31, is still recovering from a combination of low oxygen and frostbite.

Speaking to BBC Radio Ulster's Good Morning Ulster programme, Armstrong said that she is "glad to be back on Irish soil".

She said "all in all" she is "feeling much stronger" now that she is home.

Armstrong, who spent a total of 53 days on the mountain in the Himalayas, got into difficulties on the descent of her expedition.

"The downhill typically is always much more challenging than the uphill because you're so extremely tired at that stage," she said.

"On my descent, there was a time when my oxygen ran out at the balcony and that led to getting cold very quickly and struggling for a bit of time until I was able to source some new oxygen to therefore get safely back to Camp Four," Armstrong said.

Armstrong said she had a sense of panic.

"Then, suddenly, for somebody who just felt so strong through the whole expedition and the whole push, I just suddenly wasn't very lucid," she said.

"So it's gathering yourself physically and mentally, really, to try and keep moving at that stage and keep it together."

She said she is glad to have made it down safely.

Armstrong still has frostbite in seven of her fingers. This can occur when the skin is exposed to temperatures below 0C.

"In time, the frostbite will hopefully recover well," she said.

"Most of them are grade one, so they should recover with time. But how long, we don't know. It could be a few months, which isn't great when you work as a dentist.

"As I say, I'm adjusting to the new normal at the minute."

More than 1,000 people have summited Everest this season, making it the busiest on record.

A record number of 274 people scaled Mount Everest via Nepal on 20 May, after a late start to this year's spring season due to a huge chunk of ice blocking the climbing route.

This was the day Armstrong summited the mountain.

"So that led to hundreds and hundreds of people on the mountain that day," she said.

"But certainly, from I think Base Camp you could tell the mountain was busy.

"This year the Tibetan side of the mountain was shut, which obviously meant the Himalayan side had more climbers."

Armstrong said the journey she made from Camp Three to Camp Four "typically should take five to seven hours". However, she was "out on the rope that day for 12 hours in just standstill queues".

"And again, on the summit push, the Hillary Step, which is a well-known area just before the summit, I stood there in -35 with wind chills right up to 40 mile an hour for nearly two hours standstill," she said.

Separately, a Nepali climbing guide was this month discovered crawling down Everest six days after he was last seen alive after getting separated from his clients. Hillary Dawa Sherpa had been presumed dead before being found.

The incident raises troubling questions for the booming high-altitude tourism industry, and shines a spotlight on the deadly risks Sherpas who work on Mount Everest face.