Posted on 05/24/2006 1:58:55 PM PDT by Mr. Brightside
That story from fellow-climber's perspective:
http://www.everestnews.com/everest2006/coupleeverest2006dis05292006.htm
"Oh No!
Just here at over 8600m we ran into Paul and his Sherpas again. At first I was elated as I thought we'd somehow caught up to them, but then he told me of his predicament with his oxygen, the only option being for him to go down. ... He urged me to go on saying "you've got it in the bag!". ... At the time I was so focused on the reality of seeing whether I could get to the top or not, I didn't really think of any other options but putting my all into getting as far up as I could.
But as I plodded on, I began to think of the disappointment for Paul and the shame in not being able to achieve this together. As well as wondering whether I should have gone down with him so that we could try again together some other time, or whether I should have offered my oxygen and gone down (which to be honest, didn't even cross my mind - maybe the altitude?). We said a brief good bye and good luck and then parted, up and down the mountain."
Read both climber's stories! Thank you for the links.
i think you are right about the slow motion train wreck.
it also reminds me of the movie "scott of the antarctic"--basically the whole movie is about a group of men slowly freezing to death.
it is probably just a facet of human nature that people are fascinated with certain types of death.
for some reason, i started thinking of that event also. it must be something about extreme, lethal situations that links them together in our mental associations.
That could be part of the problem. My old coach told me that girls sap your strength.
Everest is quickly becoming an unintentional graveyard for those arrogant enough to think the laws of nature do not apply to them. A tribute to Darwinism.
maybe we could get a contract from the chinese govt to build an elevator.
You tell him "come on, God, he opted for the $6000 package, and I paid for the $35,000 package, and I'll be damned if I'm sharing."
What did Jesus say about condemning ourselves with the words we speak?
how do you explain this?
May 28, 2006
'Dead' Climber's Survival Impugns Mount Everest Ethics
By ALAN COWELL
LONDON, May 27 — It has been a lethal and quirky climbing season on Mount Everest, with at least 15 deaths recorded so far.
But no episode seemed quite so strange as the story of Lincoln Hall, a 50-year-old Australian climber, who was a 16th. But only for a while.
His tale, which emerged here on Saturday, offered an inspiring counterpoint to the grim end of a British solo climber, David Sharp, 34, who was left to die on May 15 as some 40 other climbers passed him on their own attempts to reach the 29,035-foot peak.
That case revived a passionate debate over the ethics of high altitude climbing, particularly in what is called the death zone, where conditions, temperatures and the lack of oxygen combine to mean that rescuers may forfeit their own lives in trying to save a sick or incapacitated climber.
Mr. Hall, one of Australia's best-known climbers, was on an expedition whose members paid a minimum of $16,000, according to its Web site. The group included a 15-year-old Australian climber, Chris Harris, who had hoped to become the youngest climber to reach the summit.
He was forced to turn back after having problems breathing, but Mr. Hall and others made it to the top on Thursday.
Accounts on Saturday, pieced together from expedition Web sites and newspaper articles, said that on the descent, Mr. Hall suddenly collapsed. He was pronounced dead by the sherpa guides accompanying him and abandoned at 28,500 feet. The cause was understood to be cerebral edema — a swelling of the brain.
The next day, according to accounts from Mr. Hall's fellow climbers, he was seen by Dan Mazur, an American veteran of many Himalayan expeditions. Mr. Mazur, they said, realized that Mr. Hall was still alive. Almost incomprehensibly, he survived the night.
"Lincoln was motionless, but submitted weak attributes of life," Alex Abramov, the Russian leader of the expedition, said on its Web site (http://www.7summits-club.com/).
The expedition dispatched a team of 13 sherpas to rescue him. Three sherpas with "tea, oxygen and medicines have reached Lincoln," the expedition Web site reported Friday.
"Lincoln has a rest, drinks tea. He in consciousness, however not completely understands what happens," Mr. Abramov wrote on the Web site.
It ascribed his initial weakness on the mountain to an "acute edema and hypoxia," meaning he was not getting enough oxygen.
By 10 p.m. local time Thursday, Mr. Hall and his rescuers were said to have descended to a camp at about 23,000 feet on the North Col of Everest. And by Saturday, "Lincoln Hall was able to walk on his own" to the Advanced Base Camp farther down the mountain.
The fact that he had been able to walk unassisted was taken as testimony to a remarkable recovery and raised the question of what might have happened to the Briton, David Sharp, if he had been helped.
"We will never know the whole story of who helped David and who did not," the EverestNews.com Web site said Saturday, as it published a photograph of the rock cave where Mr. Sharp died. "We will never know the whole story of his summit attempt and descent, where he ended up next to the previously dead climber in the rock cave on Everest. But we do know where he froze to death on Everest."
The climbing season had been an unusual one for records. A New Zealander, Mark Inglis, the first double amputee to reach the summit earlier this month, was one of the climbers who passed the dying Mr. Sharp on his way up the mountain.
Mr. Inglis told New Zealand television: "Trouble is at 8,500 meters, it's extremely difficult to keep yourself alive, let alone keeping anyone else alive. On that morning over 40 people went past this young Briton."
Mr. Inglis said he radioed for help but a fellow mountaineer told him: "Look, mate, you can't do anything. You know, he's been there X number of hours, been there without oxygen, you know, he's effectively dead."
The episode provoked a sharp dispute with Sir Edmund Hillary, the New Zealander who, with Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, made the first verifiable conquest of Everest in 1953. Sir Edmund said that "people have completely lost sight of what is important."
"In our expedition, there was never any likelihood whatsoever if one member of the party was incapacitated that we would just leave him to die," he told a New Zealand newspaper, The Otago Daily Times.
Explain what?
2 hours from camp?
Two hours from a tent that was still in the "death zone."
Staying at that altitude for more than 24 hours means death.
//////////
the above is your response to my complaint that someone should have helped the 38 year old man who was left to die in the article you posted
i thought that you were of the opinion that it was ok for the 40 or so others to pass the man and continue on their way to the summit..
so now, only a few days later, we have another man, left to die by his companions, at an even higher altitude. this second man (50 years old) was still alive the next day, and was given some assistance, and survived.
why is it ok to abandon the first man and leave him to die...when now it has been shown that it is possible to survive at that altitude for more than 24 hours?
that is what i was hoping you could explain.
The second man WALKED DOWN the mountain. (find the story and read it). The first man was frozen and immobile. The Sherpas who attempted his rescue claimed that he could only move his eyelids. He could not even stand with help.
And regarding the ability of a man to survive longer than normal in the death zone is the equivilent of a man surviving being struck by lightning. Just because one man was able to beat the odds, it hardly makes it safer for others.
Hi there
I am trying to find the death rate and number of deaths on The Eiger and The Matterhorn. I was wondering where you got your information from?
If you could point me in the right direction of these statistics I would really appreciate it.
Kind regards,
Kyla
Do they ever recover the bodies, or do they just leave them to freeze (or rot) on the mountain forever?
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