An Australian woman is hoping to keep all her fingers after getting a severe case of frostbite in Saskatchewan.

Emma Quirk, 25, recently posted her story on the Imgur photo website.

She said she was new to the province, had been drinking and passed out. Somebody found her outside in freezing conditions and she went to a hospital.

"I'm extremely lucky to be alive," Quirk said Thursday from her current home in Banff, Alberta.

I remember trying to use my armpits to warm up my fingers and it wouldn't work. - Emma Quirk

The scary episode happened in Prince Albert, Sask., in early December on a night when the temperature was around -30 Celsius. Quirk, who has been in Canada for four years, had finished work for the day and went to a bar where she drank too much. She left without her jacket and gloves and had no phone with her, nor any money.

Quirk said her friends thought she had called for a taxi.

"I remember falling in the snow," Quirk said. "I remember trying to use my armpits to warm up my fingers and it wouldn't work. I remember trying to put my fingers in my mouth to try and warm them up and then I remember just deciding that it was kind of hopeless and that I'd curl up in a ball and go to sleep."

Quirk figures she was missing for just over three hours. At around 5:45 a.m. she was spotted curled up against the wall of a nursing home. Staff of the care home saw her on their security camera system, went to her aid and called for an ambulance.

"I had no idea how serious it was," Quirk said. "It wasn't until the nurse said the best case scenario I keep my fingers. The worst case I lose my hands. That's when it really sunk in how bad it was and even then I didn't realize how close to dying I was."

Pain, and shame

Quirk said she was in rough shape when she was sent home from the hospital.

"It was still a lot of pain and a lot shame really at the end of it," she said. "I"m still really embarrassed that somehow me drinking too much could have such as huge effect and it's not just me. It's taking doctors' time and nurses' time. I'm still feeling really guilty about the whole thing."

A surgeon from Prince Albert — whom Quirk was amused to learn is named Dr. Friesen — took care of her.

Quirk said her hands have almost fully recovered. She lost her fingernails but they are growing back. She said she has full use of her hands and only experiences some numbness in her fingertips. She added they get cold fast. She said she is also waiting to see if she'll lose a finger or the tip of a finger, but her doctor is optimistic that won't happen.

I will be the first person of anybody to admit my own stupidity. - Emma Quirk

She said she posted pictures on Saturday and the number of views, over one million, has been over overwhelming and

unexpected.

"I was really stupid. I will be the first person of anybody to admit my own stupidity and I think people are pretty quick

to judge someone getting too drunk," she said. "But it wasn't my intention at all to get that drunk. It was just me not

keeping track of how much I'm drinking or how much I ate that day."

A hard lesson

She said she posted the picture so other people would know about the dangers of over drinking.

"Just show how dangerous it can be when you forget about it and I think we can call admit that drinking too much especially in my age group," Quirk said. "People drink too much frequently and I think it's something that should be considered more seriously."

She added she has curbed her own drinking habits.

Her grisly photos were taken over the course of a number of days. They show her with fingers that were at first discoloured, then covered with enormous blisters and finally with the blisters popped.

"Frostbite recovery is pretty well known for its pain, apparently," she wrote on the website.