A superfit middle-aged mountaineer survived more than 20 hours buried overnight by an avalanche when temperatures plunged to minus 15.

Police and rescuers had given up any hope of finding 54-year-old Carluccio Sartori after more than 20 hours and were astonished when they pulled him out from the snow not only alive, but also able to talk and have a conversation.

Rescuers believe that an air chamber that formed the surface of the avalanche not only provided him with oxygen to breathe but also insulated him from the freezing temperatures of the night.

Cops say that the incredible rescue of the man from Villanova Marchesana in Rovigo happened at the famous resort in Badia Valley in the Italian South Tyrol region on 27th January.

When he was pulled out of the ground he had a body temperature of 23 degrees Celsius after having spent the whole night buried by snow when temperatures reached -15 degrees Celsius.

The body temperature meant that he was in the third and most serious stage of hypothermia, but after being rushed to the San Maurizio hospital in Bolzano and hospitalized in intensive care he is expected to make a full recovery despite suffering some fractures and frostbite on his hands and feet.

His daughter Irene, 19, is reportedly by his bedside and said: “Dad is recovering, now the doctors will keep him monitored, we want to thank all the rescuers.”

She added: “Let’s hope for the best, he’s strong.”

The emergency services started looking when the missing man’s family raised the alarm, and a team from the Aiut Alpin Dolomites eventually found him in the Alpe di Fanes area.

It was actually Irene who called and investigated that he had never returned to the Sass Dlacia campsite in San Cassiano, in Alto Adige, where he had parked his camper.

She said: “From the early afternoon he didn’t answer phone calls and didn’t receive messages, that’s why I was worried.”

They started looking that evening with an aerial search and started digging when they found a glove that the man had lost when the avalanche struck.

Irene said that the rescuers could not believe it when they saw the glove and then when they pulled the glove off they found that hand and also the signal from a rescue device.

The Arva is an electronic device used to help track down the victims of avalanches where it omits an acoustic signal.