Legless man conquers Everest

[SerreChe 2]

Another record on everest: 16 times.

 

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/05/19/everest.sherpa.ap/index.html

[giggsy 0]

I thought legless meant something else when I first read that! (ie. totally drunk).

 

Good stuff though.

[Rag-Doll 0]

This is an interesting addition to the story. I've seen a couple of other reports, docos etc of the dilemma facing climbers in this situation. It probably happens to some degree in quite a few of the high alt deaths on Everest. Should they stop and help or keep going? It must be particularly hard for the family of the person who died to know that there were other people there who did not even try to help.

 

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/disa...8150234881.html

[bushpig 0]

Adding further... http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/attitude-to-everest-horrifying/2006/05/24/1148150286180.html

 

Sir Edmund Hillary has questioned the actions of New Zealand climber Mark Inglis, who left another climber to die on his way to conquering Mt Everest.

 

Inglis, a double-amputee, was one of many climbers who passed British climber David Sharp, 34, on his way to the top of the world's highest mountain a week ago.

 

Sharp, a 34-year-old engineer, later died on the mountain.

 

"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," Hillary, the first climber to conquer Everest, told the Otago Daily Times.

 

On Monday night, Inglis said his own party was the only one to stop and help Sharp from among a stream of about 40 climbers who walked on past Sharp as he lay in Everest's "death zone" above 8000m.

 

Other climbers reported seeing Sharp trying to work on his oxygen system, but Inglis said the Briton had no oxygen.

 

Sharp had climbed alone, after two previous unsuccessful attempts in 2003 and 2004, without oxygen.

 

Both times he was forced to turn back at 8470m. This time, he apparently reached the summit with the help of two four litre oxygen bottles from a trekking company.

 

Hillary said that on his expedition there was no way you would leave a man under a rock to die.

 

He said people had completely lost sight of what was important.

 

"There have been a number of occasions when people have been neglected and left to die and I don't regard this as a correct philosophy," he said.

 

He said the difficulties posed by operating at high altitude were not an excuse.

 

"I think the whole attitude towards climbing Mt Everest has become rather horrifying. The people just want to get to the top," he said.

 

"They don't give a damn for anybody else who may be in distress and it doesn't impress me at all that they leave someone lying under a rock to die."

 

A scientist who has studied oxygen use on Mt Everest told the Otago Daily Times he believed the life of the British climber could have been saved.

 

University of Otago scientist and mountaineer Dr Phil Ainslie said it might have been possible to revive the climber with bottled oxygen and even get him down to safety.

 

However, he said that one chance of making the summit would have dictated events.

 

Many on the mountain had paid upwards of $US75,000 ($A99,000) and were effectively being dragged up by guides, he said.

[Fattwins 0]

sounds pretty sad but heck 90% of those people are rich and really dont care by the sounds of it. I think it would have been a better story had the legless man saved the man that made it to the top. then the next year they reach the goal together.

[Rag-Doll 0]

Here is an article by Stephen Venables from this morning's Age about 8000+ climbing. The legless Kiwi guy suffered frost bite to his fingers and the stumps of the legs - the climb obviously knocked him a round a bit. I find this stuff fascinating:

 

NOT FOR nothing is it called the "death zone". Unless you have experienced it for yourself, it is impossible to imagine the brutality of a world above 8000 metres - a rarefied, desolate place where the human body is effectively dying; where the longer you stay, the more you deteriorate; and where the potent mixture of oxygen-starvation and ambition distorts your moral compass.

On the face of it - and certainly to nonclimbers - it may seem callous that Mark Inglis should have left dying British climber David Sharp to his fate while he and his team pressed on to their goal. But at that altitude climbers are operating in an environment where just putting on their boots requires monumental effort. To then put one foot in front of the other demands drawing on huge reserves of willpower.

And your huge, swirling ambition is all that keeps you going. You occupy a private dreamworld where reaching the object of your desire - the summit - is everything. There is no accounting for the muddled thinking of the oxygen-starved brain.

You climb on, overcoming all discomforts and tribulations, because you are singleminded, because you possess a kind of bloody-minded determination - but the corollary is that it can make you selfish. It is not an enobling experience. You have to be intent on your goal, almost impervious to other claims made on you. Climbing Everest is an egotistical thing to do.

Self-reliance is a huge component of the climbing mentality but the ethics are schizophrenic. On one hand, there is the hope that if you encounter someone in difficulty you would do your best to help them. (At the very least, if I were the one in extremis I would hope that someone would sit beside me and spare me a lonely death.) You hope your egotism would be tempered by compassion. But the undercurrent of ambition can all too easily override your better instincts.

As a climber, I would feel a lingering regret if I did not stop to help a fellow climber, lying injured or dying, a feeling that I had failed him or her. The summit would seem rather a hollow victory. But it is easy to say that when you are sitting at home reflecting on it.

Yes, there are big moral issues here, but there are practical considerations, too. I can well imagine the kind of discussion that would have taken place as Inglis and his party came across the stricken Sharp in the death zone. Can we actually do anything to help? Is it physically possible to get a grown man down a precipitously sloping terrain, at an altitude where human beings can barely exist at all? It is likely that, after giving him oxygen, there was simply nothing more they could do. An air rescue would have been out of the question because helicopters cannot operate above an altitude of about 6500 metres.

Everest is said to be littered with corpses. In my 30 years of climbing, I never saw a dead body on a mountain but I know I would have found it deeply shocking to have been brought so close to the prospect of my own death in this way. Objectively, climbers accept their mortality - but there is an inevitable element of self-deception and self-belief at play: subjectively, they don't think it will happen to them.

There is an argument that the mountain is the finest tomb a climber can have, but this may be merely a way of rationalising an unpleasant necessity. It is a mark of human respect to remove a body and have it buried or cremated as part of the grieving ritual. If I were able to bring a dead companion down, that is what I would do but it would be a challenging logistical exercise.

I can imagine how easy it is for one group blindly to follow another and ignore the injured or dying. A kind of moral laziness sets in, a shoulder-shrugging feeling of helplessness.

It is very hard to explain to non-climbers the paradox of high-altitude climbing. It involves great discomfort and danger but is also an intensely exhilarating, joyful experience.

Knowing that things can go horribly wrong reinforces the sense that, morally, as well as physically, you are entering a different world - a world with different rules.

[nzlegend 1]

The legless guy!! why TF single him out when 39 other people also passed the stricken climber?

Look at at news stories on the net and would seem only Inglis did nothing its all his fault!, hardly any mention of the 39 other climbers who passed by?

This British climber was an idiot, solo climber without proper equipment and insuffucient oxygen, he had removed his own jacket and gloves and was near death above 8000m.

quote "had been frozen solid and unable to speak, with the only sign of life some movement in his eyes".

Inglis and his team did try to help but when is was obvious it was futile they moved on. Harsh as it is but rescue above 8000m is all but impossible, you can barely walk let only carry anyone, its not called the death zone for nothing.

I cant fathom why Inglis is copping all the flack of all the people he couldnt save anyone, it was hard enough to walk himself. The 39 other able bodied people should be copping the flack not just him.

(there is alot more to this story than Australian media sources quoted above)

[Rag-Doll 0]

SG -I'm not sure, are you having a go at me or the media? It seems to me that the media picked up on the Brit dying because it adds a salacious scandal to the Kiwi’s success. I agree completely that he is being unfairly singled out and it is not as if this sort of thing hasn’t happened before on Everest. It has, at least one other time that I know of, when a US woman made it to the top and then died on the way down. A South African team copped a pasting in much the same way that the Kiwi guy is now simply because the local media wanted to juice the story up a bit.

 

The thing I find fascinating is the mind bogglingly extreme conditions under which the climbers operate above 8000+. I’d love to have a go at it.

[nzlegend 1]

The media Ragdoll, having a vent at them, sorry if I was confusing.

[Yuki's Passion 1]

>I’d love to have a go at it

 

me too. Id love to be fit enough to climb Everest and actually get to the summit. That must be an amazing experience!!

[JPchucky 0]

Not even news.They shouldn't bitch.

People are left for dead all the time on Everest.

Very rarely are corpses brought down (usually thrown in a crevasse). Anyone who attempts Everest knows what could happen, and depending what route you take there are many corpses along the way just to remind you. A friend who attempted Everest was just in awe at the first body he came across staring at it for 20 min. thinking Daammmnnnnn since the bodied don't decompose, he said the skin looks like it's made from ceramic. After coming across other corpses he didn't even look twice. As said there's absolutely nothing you can do at that altitude.

[Rag-Doll 0]

There is a fair bit about all this in the press right now because an Aust climber died the other day too. - Lincoln Hall and this guy was very experienced. The report said 15 people had died on Everest this year!

[mattlucas 0]

 Quote:

there's absolutely nothing you can do at that altitude.

Not true
Many people have been rescued from near death at that altitude

[Rag-Doll 0]

Yeah, I didn't actually say that. It was that bloke Stephen Venables whose article I pasted in. Personally I'd have no idea what is possible at such heights, but from the account of Lincoln Hall's death rescue is very difficult but not impossible.

 

There is a whole other issue about who should be making the attempt to climb Everest. I think it was in Hall's expedition that there was a visually impaired climber and a 15 yr old. Talk about ratcheting up the risk of somebody needing to be rescued. Jeezus!

[eskimobasecamp 0]

Did you guys read about the skiing accident on Mount Everest recently - i think last week?

 

Tomas Olsson (Swede) and Tormod Granheim (Norwegian), who made a successful ski descent of Cho Oyu (8201m) in 2004, in Tibet - the world's 6th highest peak - attempted to ski the north face of Everest. They summited Everest, but the attempt turned to tragedy for Tomas Olsson, who died in the attempt.

 

Read more about it in these links -

 

http://www.natives.co.uk/do/ecco.py/view_item?listid=9&listcatid=39&listitemid=1568&

 

http://www.mounteverest.net/news.php?id=2070

 

I think someone successfully skied Everest a number of years back (perhaps a Frenchman, i'm not sure) but not the north face.

[eskimobasecamp 0]

Here's a slighty more comprehensive write up of the events -

 

http://www.skiingmag.com/skiing/online_exclusive/article/0,12910,1196784,00.html

[bushpig 0]

Great site EBC

 

(mounteverest.net)

[eskimobasecamp 0]

obviously not as good as www.skiporn.com but not bad eh

[bushpig 0]

obviously!

[mattlucas 0]

I'll give that a read later EBC

 

Changed my above post RD

[JPchucky 0]

Me too sorry about that.

 

Yes, of course people have been rescued from very high on Everest, (I worded that wrong)but usually they were injured from a fall, totally dif. animal.

 

In the case of this guy, I can't believe that 40 people passed him thinking I could prolly save this mans life. Maybe they could have medicated him, or used a Gamow, and brought him down.I've never even been over 7,000m so it's impossible to fathom, but for me I think that the feeling of saving this mans life would be far better than the feeling I would get from summiting any mountain. I love climbing even more than skiing, but I love my fellow brothers and sisters even more.

 

Then we have the huge issue that the climbers on Everest are for the most part inexperienced, some lacking even the most basic mountaineering skills. As RD mentioned (double checked that one)

we have very young and impared prople on the mountain. The 17yo Frenchman summited, a 16 yo sherpa summited, and then the totally blind man summited. Also, a helicopter HAS landed on the summit before. And the guides that lead them up are doing their job getting people to the summit, where sometimes the only experienced people on the mountain can't turn around the whole expedition to help some guy on a solo ascent lacking experience, and supplies.

[Rag-Doll 0]

Of course it is a different world at that height, but I do find it difficult to reconcile the life and death environment that the climbers talk about and, for some, the ability to justify continuing up the mountain rather than attempting to save someone’s life with kids and geriatrics and freakin’ helicopters landing on the summit (although I think that record is in dispute) and others skiing down. 8000m+ - The Death Zone or a mountaineering fun park?

[bushpig 0]

mountaineering fun park! Nice!

[JPchucky 0]

 Quote:

Originally posted by Rag-Doll:
The Death Zone or a mountaineering fun park?

Perfect, my thoughts exactly.

[eskimobasecamp 0]

I can imagine that there are a lot of inexperienced and perhaps quite rich Mount Everest 'climbers' up there - and all they see is the summit.

 

It seems a strange place - when you compare real Himalayan mountaineers and people who are there for an all or nothing summit of the world's highest mountain.

 

The arguments in favour of Sir Edmund Hillary's stance certainly portray those 40 or so climbers as somewhat heartless, as though they just walked past, without even thinking about the life of David Sharp. I wonder what really happened? It's hard to tell, when so far the only person who has spoken out is Mark Inglis. Previous evidence tells us, that indeed rescues have been made at such altitude - not easy and perhaps often unsuccessful, nonetheless - it separates those who hold human compassion and solidarity higher in value than standing at the top of Everest. Furthermore, since there were so many people passing Sharp that day - wasn't there a greater chance for his survival had a rescue been attempted? That's quite a lot of people, who could have tried to do something.

 

It's a shame that the BIGGEST mountain will always attract a certain type of person (not making allusions to the 40 climbers that day, i don't know who they were) - and that Everest is a place where if you have enough money...

 

With situations like that arising and outstanding climbers standing up to argue strongly about these situations, it makes you wonder what is going on up there?