Everest climber left to die alone

Washington Times ^ | 5/23/06

[Paddlefish]

Mark Inglis, an amputee who conquered Mount Everest on artificial legs last week, yesterday defended his party's decision to carry on to the summit despite coming across a dying climber. As his team climbed through the "death zone," the area above 26,000 feet where the body begins to shut down, they passed David Sharp, 34, a stricken British climber who later died. His body remained on the mountain.

Mr. Inglis, 47, a New Zealander, said: "At 28,000 feet it's hard to stay alive yourself. He was in a very poor condition, near death. We talked about [what to do for him] for quite a lot at the time and it was a very hard decision. "About 40 people passed him that day, and no one else helped him apart from our expedition. Our Sherpas (guides) gave him oxygen. He wasn't a member of our expedition, he was a member of another, far less professional one." Mr. Sharp was among eight persons who have died on Everest this year, including another member of his group, a Brazilian. Dewa Sherpa, a manager at Asian Trekking, the Katmandu company that outfitted Mr. Sharp before his climb, said he had not taken enough oxygen and had no Sherpa guide.

*********

The company charges $6,000 to provide services as far as base camp -- far less than the $35,000 or more cost of guided trips to the summit. Other mountaineers have criticized the commercialism of climbing the 29,035-foot peak, with guides charging huge sums to climbers with minimal experience.

[CORedneck]

Interesting...........

[MEGoody]

They had to get back down to thicker atmosphere before they started dying too.

Based on my reading of the article, the team was climbing (going up the mountain) when they passed him, not descending. Seems to me that rescuing a dying man was more important than continuing to climb. But of course, that wouldn't be the case for glory hounds.

If the article says anywhere that they were descending, please point it out to me.

[ol painless]

"Wrong. Descending a mountain is much more dangerous than climbing it. And complicating a descent with 250 pounds of dead (or dying) weight makes an already dangerous job, one that's killed scores on Everest, exponentially trickier."

Not to mention that at 28,000 feet nobody has the energy to carry 200lbs. Almost all of the people who have died above the death zone, their bodies are still there.

[Raycpa]

In Biblical times, the Samaritans were absolutely despised by the Jewish nations. They were seen as a mixed-blood race resulting from the inter-marriages between northern kingdom exiles and the Gentiles that had been brought into the land by the Assyrians in 2 Kings 17:24. The Jews seriously believed that they were the only "pure-blooded," truly chosen people of God, and considered their Samaritan relatives as second-class citizens, at best.

More disturbing, the Samaritans were seen as spiritual half-breeds, something to be reviled. Their Bible consisted of the five books of Moses (the Pentateuch) only, and they believed that Mount Gerizim was the mountain on which Moses had commanded that an altar be built (Deuteronomy 27:4-6). The Samaritans had in fact constructed a temple on Mount Gerizim (where both Abraham and Isaac had built altars according to Genesis 12:7: 33:20) in approximately 400 BC, which the Jews destroyed in 128. This did not help to bring peace between the two groups, serving rather to increase hostility.

http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:uCt-kr7vJ6EJ:www.whosoever.org/v6i1/april.html+Samaritan+hate&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=8

[Diggler]

You know, Homer Simpson just rode the corpse (that Grandpa Simpson took a bite of, years previous) down the mountain. Maybe they could have tried that.

[MEGoody]

You put yourself in one of the most dangerous places on earth, don't expect someone else to bail you out if you get in trouble.

Pitiful excuse for abandoning a dying man so one can get a little glory.

[spunkets]

"Then you don't understand that this Samaritan took his life in his hands by being in the wrong place. "

You can't seem to grasp the story itself. This was a road between cities. It wasn't a road through a land of thieves. The Samaritan's help was cash and a free ride to the next inn. The Samaritan didn't have to fight off the marauding hordes.

"That is why the story is so powerful to its original hearers.

No, it was putting up the cash that was. If you think it's so important, then you should put up the cash to make sure these climbers have enough funds to cover more manpower and equipment. Don't lay that on other folks. Cough up the cash yourself.

[maica]

I hope that part of the $35 ,000 fee contributes to the cleanup.
It seems that in so many areas of adventure "mobs" have been able in our "depressed" economy to make these remote areas just vacations to be experienced and crossed off of personal lists.




Example: Two glaceologists, ie men getting their climbing adventure paid for by being academics, bought the sailboat that had been my family's home. They were not sailors but needed transportation to get to remote glaciers. A few years later they were in Antarctica on the boat they had bought from us. I met a friend from the marina where we had lived aboard this boat, and said to him "did you know that Gambo [the boat we sold] was in Antarctica?" He answered, "Yes, did you know that Roberta [his daughter] was in Antarctica?" She is a professional sailor and avid skier, who was there on an all female glacial 'expedition.'

[hattend]

If you are breathing oxygen through a cannula or simple oxygen mask (you breath it in on your own) then you can never get enough oxygen to provide you what you need while in the death zone. No matter how much oxygen you have, you can't stay there.

Above 8000 meters, you need a pressurized oxygen mask that blows oxygen into your lungs (you make the effort to expel your breath which is opposite of what is normal). Much higher than that and you need a pressure suit or a pressurized cockpit to stay alive

[hattend]

If you can find the book "The Long Lonely Leap" (Capt Kittenger), give it a read.

It pretty much explains the whole oxygen at altitude thing. He went to 100K feet just to jump out...very interesting read.

[DoctorMichael]

"....Did you see the skeleton of the leopard?...."

No, I didn't. However, I wish I paid for another day (7days/6nights instead of 6days/5nights) to get fully acclimitized at the Summit-camp at 15,500' and I'm sure I could have done the whole thing. Oh well.

I did the 'Machame Route'.............
Machame Route

I did sign up though, through the same booking agency as I used for the Kilimanjaro trek, for a Safari after Kilimajaro and went to the Ngorongoro crater and Lake Manyara Game Preserve where I saw LIVE Leopards, Cheetahs and Lions as well as Elephants and many other animals.

Here.............

The accomidations were fantastic after the primitive conditions and trek on Kili.
Lake Manyara Hotel

[Guenevere]

Yes, that's what I meant....that's how I remember it.

[nascarnation]

This is high stakes gambling for sure.
Probably don't have tort lawyers over there?

I realize it's a whole 'nother deal, but reading about Ernie Shackelton is much more inspiring.

[winner3000]

If they decided to let him die, I wonder why they gave him oxygen. That would just prolong his agony.

[abner]

Ernie Shackelton is much more inspiring.

Yes, the most inspiring, nailbiting story I have ever read. That story makes us all looks like pansies.

[schu]

I would expect they do, I have a friend who just returned from Cho Oyu, I ask him.

That said, I would not climb/trek with someone who wanted to sign a waiver or otherwise state that he was not obligated to help me/nor I him.

Much of the fun of these kinds of activities is the camaraderie (sp). It is kind of hard to be friends with someone who is not looking out for you, especially at that extreme level.

schu

[Raycpa]

The Samaritan stopped and helped with what he could do at personal risk of finding himself attacked.

Trying to bend God's words in a way that makes these men unnacountable is an interesting angle.

The point of the story is each of us is accountable for our neighbor, even if our neighbor is an idiot.

[radiohead]

Thanks! That explains a lot.

[Mr. Brightside]

You should rewrite your analogy

OK. Getting a dying man off Everest is like trying to save a drowning man by dragging him across 10 miles shark infested ocean waters after going 48 hours without sleep and swimming for 75 miles without a break.

The rest of the post is pretty interesting if you haven't read it.

[ctdonath2]

Main Entry: tri·age
Pronunciation: trE-'äzh, 'trE-"
Function: noun
Etymology: French, sorting, sifting, from trier to sort, from Old French -- more at TRY
: the sorting of and allocation of treatment to patients and especially battle and disaster victims according to a system of priorities designed to maximize the number of survivors; broadly : the assigning of priority order to projects on the basis of where funds and resources can be best used or are most needed.

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The dying climber was going to expire, period. Under those conditions, there was no saving him. Attempting to save him would at best fail, and at worst send several more with him. He chose the risk and got himself into a lethal situation which nobody could save him from; don't blame strangers for not doing that which would not help him and which would likely terminate them as well. It's not like they could just hang around and comfort him, much less pull off a viable rescue attempt. The region is called the "death zone" for a reason: the other climbers were dying as well.