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There was a segment on TDC last night on Everest and the problems this one group was having. What bothered me the most was when they had passed by another person who had dropped by the wayside and he was dying but they just left him there. On the way back they checked on him and he had finally died............I just could not understand or comprehend the mindset of those people that just walked by. Common decensey would have had those people stop their mission and try to get the guy back down.

They even showed pictures of other people who had died and their bodies remained on site..........

In defense of those climbers on Mount Everest . . .

A climb on Mount Everest is a whole different scenario. To get a sense of how large it is, just imagine climbing to the top of Mount Hood, and then from that point climbing to the top of another Mount Hood again . . . which then leaves you about 6,000 feet below the top of the mountain.

The problem with a real high mountain climb is not so much the weather conditions -- it's the lack of oxygen. These climbers are often left on the side of the trail by other passing climbers because in thin air at that elevation, any excessive exertion on the part of a climber puts his/her own life in jeopardy. Oxygen tanks are needed at these high altitudes, and helping an injured climber on the trail is basically the equivalent of going on a deep-sea dive with 60 minutes of oxygen in your tank, finding an injured diver 30 minutes into your descent, and giving him half your oxygen just so both of you can get halfway back to the surface only to die with 15 minutes left in your ascent.

Not sure where this was, but if they were in the dead zone (approx 24000 ft) there is no possible helping. the human body can barely get itself down the mountain at that altitude, there is no reserve to help anyone else. 10% of people who attempt everest die in the attempt. At high altitides, the bodies stay there forever

people who do the climb know the risk, and know that above a certain altitude there is no possible help if something goes wrong.

Wasn't there a climb like that last year or year before where they left one of their fellow climbers to die, seems like he was from Dallas, and he was actually rescued? Imagine what he was thinking.

I heard this morning that the cost has been around $120,000 (I thought it was a whole lot more) so far, but that Oregon's whole budget for SAR of this type for one year is $40,000 - and they need cash right now just to have in reserve for the everyday rescues they have to do, not to mention the extraordinary ones like this one.

Common decensey would have had those people stop their mission and try
to get the guy back down.

In most other environments, yes, it would.
But there are reasons why Mt. Everest is "The Highest Graveyard on Earth".

From everything I've read on climbing Mt. Everest, once you get
above 24,000 ft., the climbers generally accept that
"each climber must climb up AND down under their own power".

The code isn't really that brutal. But, it means that there's an acceptance
that the environment is so extreme (steep, cold, windy and lacking oxygen)
that anyone who can't get themselves up AND down the mountain may
not get adequate assistance to save them.

And that except for stopping to give extra oxygen and vocal encouragement,
you can soon end up with corpses created in the rescue effort, not just
the one lost soul.

I don't know if you caught the tail-end of that episode on Discovery.
The "chief" (Russell?) mentioned that a team of (five?)South Koreans recently
went up to bring down the body of a comrade that had died on
the mountain.
He said that after moving their friends body about 100 ft.....they gave up.

Things in "the dead zone" are just that hard and brutal.
And I think that the two climbers that did stop and give the
stricken Turkish climber about 30 minutes of aid probably did
as much as they could.

The real problem I saw in that episode was that it appeared people
passed the Turkish climber on the way up...and it's unclear if anyone
that saw him simply said, "That's it. I'll stay here as long as
I can to help him, only leaving when I only have oxygen to get
myself down safely. And so what if I can't summit today?"
I hope I'd have the moral courage to act thusly if I was climbing
Everest. (which I never will!)