There are good people here on earth. We thank them from the bottom of our heart. As for the evil ones, they will pay for their heartlessness.
I've been following these stories the last week or so. Anyone who would allow someone to die while they have an opportunity to prevent it, only so they can say they climbed the mountain, well, such a person is so twisted you can't really call him or her human.
Not only did Daniel Mazur not scale the world's highest peak from the northern side, he also failed to get his two paying clients to the top.
"It was very disappointing for me to miss my chance at the summit, but even more that I could not get my job done," Mazur, of Olympia, Wash., told The Associated Press upon returning to Nepal's capital, Katmandu, on Thursday.
Mazur, his two clients and a Sherpa guide were just two hours from the 29,035-foot peak on the morning of May 26 when they came across 50-year-old Lincoln Hall, who was left a day earlier when his own guides believed he was dead.
I agree that leaving the guy to die would be immoral and wrong, but I also think that the rescuers should present a nice hefty bill to the guy for saving his life. About enough to finance sending throse two guys to the top again and paying the guide's bills would be about right.
I guess this answers the question about whether you can rescue someone from the peak. The answer is YES.
So, I wonder if this changes the opinion of anybody who defended the other climbers in the other story before.
Mr. Hall ought to be careful in selecting his guides. They thought he was DEAD when he was alert and speaking in full sentences??? Was he taking a nap and they didn't bother tapping him on the shoulder to try to wake him up, before deciding he was dead and taking off???
Where are all those "experienced mountain climbers" who were on the other thread dissing Sir Edmund Hillary and claiming that "nobody could have gotten David Sharp down from that altitude alive."
< . . . crickets . . . >
["Oh yeah, it was worth it," he said. "You can always go back to the summit but you only have one life to live. If we had left the man to die, that would have always been on my mind ... How could you live with yourself?"]
He's a good man.
... feeling fit, Lincoln had gone on and reached the 8850-meter (29,035 feet) summit at about 9 a.m. on May 25. After some celebratory radio calls, he and the two Sherpas accompanying him headed back down. Not long afterward Lincoln was hit by cerebral edema (swelling of the brain) and became disoriented, ataxic and at 8800 meters (28,870 feet) collapsed. For almost 9 hours the Sherpas tried to help and lowered him down over very technical sections of the mountain. But under the influence of extreme altitude sickness, Lincoln became delusional and obstructive and they determined at 7 p.m. that they could not help him further.
With night coming on, expedition leader Abramov ordered the Sherpas to abandon him and save themselves, so they returned to the camp at 8300 meters suffering snow blindness. Abramov issued the news that Lincoln Hall had perished, and the report hit the wires across Australia soon after.
At 7 a.m. the next morning, American guide Dan Mazur was climbing towards the summit with some clients when they came across Hall who, though inert, showed weak signs of life. One report on EverestNews.com claimed Lincoln was sitting with his legs dangling over the face of the mountain half undressed and without a hat. They report his first words were, "I imagine you are surprised to see me here."
Mazur administered tea and radioed down to base camp. Immediately 13 Sherpas camped at the North Col (7000 meters) began climbing back up to rescue Lincoln, under the direction of Abramov. By 11 a.m., three Sherpas with medicine, oxygen and tea reached Lincoln at the Second Step (8600 meters) and with the help of Mazur and team they began to move him down on a stretcher....
...Sirdar Mingma Gelu and more Sherpas arrived, and brought Hall to the North Col Camp at 7000 meters where he was treated by Russian Doctor Andrey Selivanov for "acute psychosis" and given oxygen while sleeping. So rapid is the recovery from edema after descending, Lincoln walked the last 500 meters into camp unaided. A further day-long descent brought him back down to Advanced Base Camp (ABC) and much thicker air — the best medicine for altitude problems....
I hope Mazur gets some kind of medal and reward for his unselfishness.
Update: Lincoln Hall has walked across the border into Nepal. Dan Mazur and the group are in Base camp should be back in Katmandu in a day or two. Lincoln, is having a hard time speaking and reportedly does not recall much from the night up high....
from http://www.everestnews.com/Summitclimb2005/everestdan06022006.htm
Thanks for this. Very heart warming.
jm