A woman lost on a mountain for three days has had her toes amputated by medics after she developed severe frostbite.

The 50-year-old woman – named only Ms Wang – went on a mountain hiking trip in the Chinese province of Shaanxi with a guide and three other people in February.

But the group got lost and remained trapped due to a problem with the mobile navigation.

Ms Wang had no protective equipment and with waterlogged shoes, her toes turned black and blue from frostbite as nighttime temperatures dipped to as low as minus 30 degrees Celsius.

When the group was rescued after three days, doctors checked her feet, which had turned purple-black, and she was diagnosed with fourth-degree frostbite.

Gruesome hospital images show her shrivelled toes with frostbite apparently halfway up her to her ankles.

Zhang Wei, director of the Department of Plastic Surgery, Burns and Medical Aesthetics at the First Affiliated Hospital of Xi’an Medical University said: “The patient’s appeal is to preserve the length of her limbs as much as possible.

“According to the patient’s appeal and condition, we have formulated a three-step repair plan for the patient. In the first step, in order to preserve the length of the patient’s residual soles as much as possible, only the necrotic parts were cut off, and the wound surface was protected by negative pressure therapy.

“The free skin flap is covered and repaired directly, while for the left foot with severe injury, negative pressure therapy is used to cultivate granulation after removing necrotic bone; the third step is to repair the left foot with skin grafting.”

The skin grafting on Ms Wang’s left foot was performed on 11th March.

The hospital informed that the patient is still recovering.