CTV.ca | Everest pioneer blasts climbers who left dying man — This will give this so-called sport a black-eye.
The climbing world is facing tough criticism after dozens of mountaineers are thought to have passed by a dying climber struggling to survive as he descended from the summit of Mount Everest last week.
The British climber, 34-year-old David Sharp, had climbed the mountain solo and was on his way down from the summit.
More than 40 climbers are thought to have seen him as he lay dying, but almost all passed him by.
He was later found dead in an ice cave, apparently from oxygen deficiency.
Damn selfish bastards…
John you’re wrong and way of base!
This guy was part of a “discount” climbing party that chose to summit without experienced guides and with half the oxygen an extremely strong climber would have needed to reach the summit and return safely (to save a buck).
Watch the documentary “Into the Void” and note that EVERY climber interviewed for that movie said the same thing. “If you’re injured or do something stupid enough that requires others to help you in the death zone on Everest YOU WILL DIE!” PERIOD!
To say that others passed him by because it was a bother is extremely oversimplified. They passed him over because whoever would have tried to help this guy down would have ended up DEAD like him.
Tibet should require a strict climbing cerification in order to climb mountains like Everest instead of allowing this extreme TV wannbees on the the mountain.
I feel for this guys family but he should have known the rules before he set off “Into The Void”.
This is all too common in climbing. The problem is that the injured or ill climber is too much of a burden at altitude and thus severely jeopardizes the life of the rescuer. Recommended reading: “Touching the Void” by Joe Simpson and “Into Thin Air” by Jon Krakauer, both of which deal, painfully, with similar events.
This story is nothing new. I’ve heard many along the same lines.
But be careful about assigning who was right and who was wrong. I’m sure it’s a far more complicated matter than I can imagine sitting here in my cozy home in sunny LA.
It’s a different world up there.
So it was his fault to let the other climbers let him die? You guys are sick, it’s like watching someone drown in a pool and people doing nothing except use the “He can’t swim it’s his fault” excuse.
Another example of genetic winnowing.
At that altitude even the strongest climbers have trouble doing more than placing one foot in front of the other. One of the experienced climbers with the Inglis team said that in the condition they found Sharp it would have taken a team of Sherpas to bring him down.
It’s not like standing around at the side of a pool watching someone drown. It’s more like doing a trans-Atlantic swim with no support and coming across another swimmer in trouble. If he can’t stay afloat by himself, there’s precious little you can do for him.
Once you’re in the “Death Zone”, all bets are off. This is why Everest is SO hard to climb. Let’s not fool ourselves here, when you’re up almost 6 miles it’s hard enough to even think, much less mount a rescue. This is why so many have died on that mountain…and their bodies are STILL up there.
This isn’t a case of selfishness and people ignoring him for their own gains. EVERYONE knows when you climb that mountain you’re taking a huge huge risk. Blues had the right analogy, this isn’t a bunch of people standing around a pool watching someone drown, it’s people all in the open ocean together trying to swim across…you stop and help someone and you’re stuck there too. It takes EVERYTHING you have to just move yourself up the mountain, there is no fricken way you’ll be able to carry someone else down.
It’s a cruel mountain. If you can’t handle what you must do to climb it, then you shouldn’t even attempt it.
Goodness.
What can I say? That morality isn’t what you do with your privates, but how you deal with other people? That leaving a man to die isn’t something you do, even if you die trying to save him.
If I can’t explain why that’s important, you all are dead inside, and I can’t reach you. There are dogs that are more human than you. Actually, most dogs. Pretty much all of dogdom understands mercy more than you. At least they’ll lick your face to see if you’re alive.
Seven years ago. I was standing in the aisle of an L train in Chicago, the brown line, heading south of North avenue. Suddenly I felt light-headed. I couldn’t get my breath, and I fell to the floor. A mild heart attack, probably, according to my doctor.
I will never forget that as I lay there trying to breathe, not a single person looked at me, asked me what was wrong, tried to get help. These were business professionals, well-educated, tippy top of the office world in Chicago. No one gave a damn. All those Gucci shoes and $200 dollar dresses and $600 suits.
Morally empty. Hollow people.
It goes a long way to explaining why Americans don’t give a damn about the invasion of Iraq or the hundred thousand dead because of the lies. Or so, so many other things that I can’t seem to make anyone care about. I know it’s cliche, but really, the world was different when I was younger; people would help a stranger on a train, or call the police for whatever reason, because it was the right thing to do.
Selfishness, absolute self-absorption. Clannishness. Only me and mine, fuck y’all. Explains why no one cares about the debt, as well. It doesn’t affect them.
And all those “moral” people who aren’t tend to be conservative Fill-in-the-religious-blanks as well. As Arthur C. Clarke said, the greatest tragedy in human history was when religion hijacked morality.
Climbers’ code, what’s right and wrong, etc.
They’re still dipshiats.
Consider these things:
Since Edmund Hillary, roughly 1,400 people have climbed since 1953, (one guy has climbed it 16 times). Total deaths: 163 (158 men, 5 women)
The average number of deaths per year has been relatively steady at 5.6.
Best and Worst Years on Everest: 1993, 129 summitted and eight died (ratio: 16 to 1); in 1996, 98 summitted and 15 died (ratio: 6½ to 1)
So, why is THIS YEAR as bad as 1996, so far? Let me get this straight…10 people have died, so far, this year on Everest, This year the number is clocked at somewhere like 82 attempts. So one out of every EIGHT attempts will have a death? I’m sorry, but seems high, even for mountain climbing!
Most die of avalance (2 to 1) over falls. The most dangerous place? Khumbu Ice Fall. Now this man didn’t die of an avalance OR fall…but from oxygen sickness, something TREATABLE: hypoxia.
The thing about hypoxia is that some people are naturally more able to deal with it, while others are overwhelmed by it. You don’t know, really, until you are there. So, the trekkers take oxygen in cannisters. Larger parties take many, many of them. Individuals are limited in what they can haul up alone. Plus, without help, you are overtaken by hypoxia before you can get the oxygen, in many cases.
Since the poor departed brit was a SOLO hiker, he could only carry so much oxygen, not enough in the event of a catastrophic problem with his lungs (which was the problem).
Now the REAL issues is the “ME FIRST” “SCREW YOU” general attitude of the people who passed by. I think they all should be criminally prosecuted…..for leaving a lone stricken hiker to die gasping like a fish out of water….and especially for thinking pressing to the summit was more important than aiding another human. As for mr. “look at me, I’m an amputee and have sacrificed already, I’m going to make the news and be a hero to climb it”….he should have to face Sir Hillary and explain how his actions were adequate. I think they were not. But all who passed by should really think about the ME FIRST that hallmarks that 30-something Xgen group. They come, they do, they leave their trash. Most leave the discarded cannisters, and the rest of their garbage. So much for moral responsibility. So much for another generation of spoiled brat adults.
check out the website about cleaning up everest :
http://www.svcn.com/archives/wgresident/07.05.00/cover-0027.html
Couldn’t agree more with meetsy. I know a few climbers. Two of them once went on a tough winter mountain climb in Scotland. The weather closed in they could hardly see a few feet in front of them and it was gonna get dark in a couple of hours. They knew they could get into trouble unless they pressed on and got off the mountain. As they did they came across a couple of idiots who basically had no equipment, no axe etc, no crampons, and they were completely lost. They had to lead em down, carefully, putting their lives in great danger in doing so because it got well past dark with these guys slowing em down. However they knew that if they left these guys there they would probably have died from the cold. It’s all too easy to talk about ‘mountain code’ etc but at the end of the day, it’s wether you leave someone to die or do everything you can to help them, putting your own life on the line in the process. 40 climbers? No excuse, there is no way that they couldn’t have helped this guy back down with the supplies and man power availlable. If it was just this one amputee on his own could be understandable but 40 of ’em is criminal.
Inglis said they tried to give oxygen to him and sent out a distress call, then continued to the summit, leaving Sharp where they found him about 300 metres short of the 8,850-metre summit.
…
“If you’re on your way to the summit, that begs the question of whether you’re putting the price of someone’s life tied to a piece of rock and ice, which is the summit of Everest. That’s the more troubling question.”
In the case of the Inglis team, the climbers were on their way to the summit.
article
NO they could NOT help them down dD…
Comment by MisterRustic — 5/25/2006 @ 5:02 pm
Why not? Someone’s life is more important then your own glory? What a cold son of a bitch you are to suggest that walking right past someone obviously dieing is acceptable.
My sister’s brother-in-law (Ken) attempted the Everest summit last week and was unable to make it. He also didn’t summit two years ago. He’s in Katmandu right now looking to fly home. Disappointed? I bet he sure is. Alive? YES! It’s not all about the glory.
He spent the last two months on the north face of Everest acclimating to the thin air. This is standard for all climbing teams (read about it in the references cited earlier). These teams form close bonds as they prepare for their chance to summit. In his case this year, when he was at Camp 3 (8,300 meters), the wind was too strong. The entire team decided not to try it. They returned to a lower altitude camp. My sister’s sister-in-law posted this quote on their web site (site linked with this post):
“I did some hard climbing up high, and I’m pleased with that, but I don’t think I will make another attempt during this season. It’s like doing an Ironman (2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride and 26.2 mile run) everyday three days in a row,” he said. He explained that all he had been able to eat for the last two days was a few packages of uncooked Ramen noodles straight out of the package. “Maybe if I was 30, I could recover and try again.”
A few members of his team are indeed in the midst of a 2nd summit attempt as I write this.
He is a surgeon, and saved several lives 2 years ago during his attempt. I haven’t spoken with him about this event. So I don’t want to predict how he would have reacted; although I would guess that his doctor-instincts would have taken over.
However (my opinion now), I personally think that once you choose to make the summit attempt, you are responsible for yourself, your pack, and your survival. The air is so thin in the so-called “dead zone” that even these specimens of extreme physical health are working at maximum heart rate, and taking 2 or 3 steps at a time, then resting as they attempt to summit. And, this is with oxygen. Documentaries have described tests done on climbers to assess their mental clear-headedness in the thin air, and have shown that the human brain doesn’t work well when the blood oxygen level is low. I would say these 40 people who passed by this man chose to stay focussed on their goal in this environment.
Remember — these climbers all choose to do this. No one forced them. And they know the risks. They’ve read & watched these documentaries too! Probably more than any of us!
Stupid is as stupid does.
He was obviously testing his endurance, and failed the test.
Perhaps he’s a good Darwin Award candidate?
Above 8000m the body is squite simply dying anyway. All climbers have to minimise the time they spend up there.
Imagine running a marathon. You get only half way, and you find someone who cannot move. You have to carry them the rest of the way.
Now remember that this marathon is a vertical one, where everyone who gets half way is very close death themselves. Could you carry someone else the rest of the way?
I think it is clear that he could not be rescued, it would simply be impossible and would definitely have cost more lives. (remember helicopters cannot even fly that high!).
I just hope that people will learn this isn’t something that should be attempted solo.
Not everyone can be Reinhold Messner, and it is not worth dying for.
A day or two later and we have some different behaviour
Big rescue effort for this guy
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,19263636-28698,00.html
Maybe the climbing community has had a rethink. a bit late for David Sharp though
difficult to know exactly what happened, the people who stopped to help, thought he was beyond help, being frozen solid and only moving his eyes. Maybe someone should have stayed with him while he died. I can’t blame anyone for not trying to help or rescue him as such, if your putting your own life at risk. Eight or nine other people also died climbing the mountain this year, i’m sure they all knew the risks. The title of this post is more offensive than anything else related to the this news story
Forget Into Thin Air, read the Climb for an accurate version of events that happened in ’96, and also what can be achieved at that height.
It is easy for people in the safety of their own home to pass judgement on this.
And in the past there have been occasions when people have defied the odds and survived.
Before rushing to judgment, I suggest you read the following Harvard Case, “The We all like to think of ourselves as decent human beings. But it is impossible to know how exactly one will behave presented when presented with a situation such as that described. Can YOU be sure you would have rendered assistance? What exactly would you have done?
Parable of the Sadhu”. Here’s a synopsis:
“When does a group have responsibility for the well-being of an individual? And what are the differences between the ethics of the individual and the ethics of the corporation? Those are the questions Bowen McCoy wanted readers to explore in this HBR Classic, first published in September-October 1983. In 1982, McCoy spent several months hiking through Nepal. Midway through the difficult trek, he encountered an Indian holy man, or sadhu. Wearing little clothing and shivering in the bitter cold, he was barely alive. McCoy and the other travelers immediately wrapped him in warm clothing and gave him food and drink. A few members of the group broke off to help move the sadhu down toward a village two days’ journey away, but they soon left him in order to continue their way up the slope. What happened to the sadhu? In his retrospective commentary, McCoy notes that he never learned the answer to that.”
#22. “Like I said read Into Thin Air. IT has nothing to do with glory – only what’s physically possible for a human being. It’s easy to assume someone could pick him up and carry him down. In real life however it just isn’t humanly possible. Clark Kent could do it but none of us. In that situation, giving oxygen is all you can do.”
I have to agree with Dvorak, it is MORALLY wrong to leave a man to die because it IS physically possible for a group of climbers to forgo their remaining energy of ascent and convert that energy and oxygen supply to help the dying man descend to safety. That said, there is another factor involved which is an Everest climber’s creed of “summit or die”. In this case, the dying man knew the dangers involved and probably would have waived assistance so that his comrades could reach the goal that he couldn’t. If all the climbers were in agreement with this then they ACTED ETHICALLY. Ethics and morality are relative and universal, respectively. Another example would be that of Nazis. Nazis acted ethically because they followed the command and culture of the circumstances they were in at that time. Even the Nazis in the concentration camps acted ethically because they followed their “God” (which by definition is Man with the greatest power). Yes, they acted IMMORALLY but that can only be judged from the outside looking in such as John looking at the Everest dilemma. He is not a climber and he was not at the mountain which would have made his decision to save that man a matter of his *own* life or death. Being inside the circle looks a whole lot different than looking into the circle from the outside.
MisterRustic, I know full well that above a certain altitude the body is dying. However these people where not coming back down from the summit they where ascending to the summit. If the where descending it would have meant they had no spare supllies, since they where ascending (all 40 of them) they would have. I am not comparing my friends in Scotland in a literal sense, because I realise the mountains are not as high so oxygen is not an issue. However they still had to make a choice to put their own lives in danger in order to help others.
To put it into perspective, the first person who ever climbed Everest said himself he would never have left a man to die.
So would you drive by an auto accident just because the driver had been speeding? Would you walk past an airplane crash just because flying can be dangerous? Would you leave an injured team mate on the field because football is a tough sport?
When anyone puts their own satisfaction above that of society is just plain wrong. I realize a lot of people, especially those heartless Republican types, have no sense of worth other then their own. That however doesn’t change it being wrong to walk past a dieing man on the way to your own goal.
Ha! Evolution in action 🙂
All of you that think you would stop and help someone down a moutain at the height of a cruising 747 can go and do it. When you are dead up there you will be walked around.
The cruising altitude of a commercial jet is around 12,000 m (35,000 ft) by the way but I get your point. Fact is though I can say that if I had to prioritise acieving a goal or doing anything I could to save a mans/womans life, I would make the choice to save a life over anything else. Even just making sure the person didn’t die alone would be the decent thing to do. If someone had given him aid and oxygen, doctors say he could have recovered upto 80% of his capabilities. Instead, he ended up crawling into an ice cave and dying like an animal.
If it was me who had made the right choice, because any sense of achievement would be non existent knowing that it meant I had left a man to die on his own, I would feel guilty for the rest of my life.
If the dying man was so far gone that he could only move his eyes, why couldn’t someone at least stay with him until the end? It couldn’t have taken so much time away from the other climbers efforts.
What will happen to all those who passed by and left him to die should scare them for the rest of their lives. Every time they get sick or a loved one gets sick or is in need of medical attention, no one will stop to help.
As they get older, mature, look back on their lives and realized they ‘should’ have stopped to help, they will have to worry from this point on, what will happened to their loved ones as they continue to live in a false sense of security.
What goes around, does come back around.
Remember that and maybe you’ll remember that at some point, the shoe always ends up on the other foot . . . YOURS!