John Hunston: Suffered torn ligaments

The 44-year-old suffered a torn ligament in his ankle and some bruising to his back and hip.

But he was well enough to speak about his ordeal from Belford Hospital in Fort William where he is recovering.

Mr Hunston, from Carlisle, told Radio 4's Today programme that after his fall all "sorts of things" went through his mind.

He said: "I wondered whether my ice screws had failed.

"Fortunately the top screw did hold which was very useful and I was relatively unhurt.

Losing hope

"I had torn some ligaments in my ankle and I had bruised my back and hips. But apart from that I was in pretty good shape."

The father-of-two said it was a terrifying six hours waiting for help to arrive.

An ice screw, like this, helped the climber to hang on

"Ian called the mountain rescue team on his mobile and they said it would be a couple of hours before they could get there, we thought that wasn't too bad.

"But then two hours became three hours and three hours became four and five and six.

"We began to think they had decided to look for us in the morning with it being so dark.

"We were getting pretty cold at this stage. The water had frozen in my water carrier and we couldn't keep warm by keeping moving," said Mr Hunston.

To the relief of he climbers, the mountain rescue team arrived at about 2330 GMT.

Well-equipped

Mr Hunston was lowered 1,000ft on a rope which is kept on Ben Nevis to aid rescues.

A graphic illustrating Mr Hunston's fall

It was the first time in a decade that the rescuers had used the rope on the north face of the mountain.

Roger Wild of the Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team said it was a "protracted" operation and that Mr Hunston had been very lucky.

He added: "One of the problems was actually finding the climbers to get down to them, so there was a lot of whistle-blowing and shouting before we could locate them.

"Both men were well-equipped and the climb was well within their capabilities, but the accident could have happened to anybody.

"One of Mr Hunston's ice screws came out and as a result he fell back down to the last ice screw he had put into the face of the mountain."