Not likely. They saved themselves. In such an environment it is impossible to assist anyone down. This is not rock-hopping in the Tetons. Everyone on such a climb is in grave danger. Considering the degree of frost-bite and the likely incoherent state, it would be impossible for several people to get him down without dying themselves. Hillary is a great climber, but in this case I think he spoke ill of a fellow Kiwi before all the facts were in.
Well said. It is easy for someone sitting on their back porch in the 75 degree sunshine sipping a margarita to say the climber should have been rescued. I seriously doubt the experienced Everest guides would have just left him there if there was any chance to get him down safely.
I've been up to the Everest region and have seen people die at lesser altitudes (18,500), as well as developing altitude sickness (cerebral oedma) way down in Lobuche. Death happens there quickly and without much warning.
It's not exactly every man for himself, but a person has to be at a certain level of mobility and fitness in order to be "rescuable" without endangering even more people. Fellow climbers will go to every effort to help someone who's down, but you've got to remember that the level of available effort is dramatically reduced from the same problem at sea level. And guides aren't supermen, they succumb to altitude like anyone else (I know one who was rescued by his own clients during a bout of altitude sickness).
As for making a medical diagnosis, most guides and even many clients have some amount of medical/rescue training, because when you're up there, you're completely on your own.
Edmund Hilary has become a bit of a crank, he has absolutely no right to critique life and death decisions that he wasn't being forced to make. To my knowledge, he's never been a serious high-altitude mountaineering guide.