THE marathon runner airlifted from a remote peak suffering from severe hypothermia today said he owed his life to his companions.

Speaking from his York home where he is still recovering from his ordeal, Dave Scoreby praised the professionalism and quick-thinking of the other members of the Everest Challenge 2000 team which averted almost certain disaster.

"It was a really close call but they saved my life," he said.

"They were just brilliant they knew exactly what to do, and the teamwork involved to make sure I didn't just curl up and die was immense."

Mr Scoreby, 43, of Usher Park Road, Haxby, was on the second day of a charity expedition in Cumbria when he began to succumb to the potentially fatal effects of hypothermia.

Unaware of what was happening to him in the driving rain and bitterly cold wind, his only impulse was to "lay down and go to sleep" a common response to the condition.

Realising the extreme danger of the situation, his companions set to work restoring his body temperature and called in the Fell Rescue Unit.

"It could have been absolutely horrendous if we didn't have the right knowledge and equipment," said Mr Scoreby, who works at Nestle Rowntree.

"I had no idea what was going on. One minute I was on the mountain and ready to call it a day and the next thing I remember I was in a hospital bed being crushed by the weight of blankets."

The father-of-three, who was airlifted to hospital in Whitehaven by helicopter, said he lost about four or five hours that day.

"I could've got the bus back for all I knew," he said.

A veteran of 29 marathons, Mr Scoreby said that meticulous preparation and months of training had been the difference between life and death.

But he said the weather was infinitely worse than anyone had foreseen.

"Doing a challenge like this at the end of June, you wouldn't expect conditions like these it was the coldest weather I have experienced for many winters," he said.

Mr Scoreby said he had spent the weekend drinking cups of tea in front of the fire at home and would be returning to work later in the week.

But he said it was still to early to say whether he would be putting himself through the ordeal again.