Doing the Right Thing
Last year, I had a short post about the death of David Sharp who died on Mount Everest while an estimated 40 climbers went by without stopping to help. However, in the news today, it appears that at least some climbers are willing to lend a helping hand and even risk their own lives to help someone else (thanks to the reader who emailed me this story):
It seems like one should steer clear of these "barebones expeditions" unless they are extremely experienced and maybe even then. I imagine that the thrill for some of climbing Mount Everest is worth the risk but if something goes wrong, one is putting others in a postion to risk their lives also. But luckily, for the stricken climber, the American and his sherpa did the right thing. I wonder if the controversy over the Sharp case made them decide to do so or if they were just more altruistic than other climbers?
A stricken climber left to die on Mount Everest was saved by an American guide and a sherpa who found her by accident as they returned from the summit....
Usha, like Sharp, was apparently on the sort of barebones expedition that charges clients typically as little as $8,933 and provides them with only basic equipment.
It seems like one should steer clear of these "barebones expeditions" unless they are extremely experienced and maybe even then. I imagine that the thrill for some of climbing Mount Everest is worth the risk but if something goes wrong, one is putting others in a postion to risk their lives also. But luckily, for the stricken climber, the American and his sherpa did the right thing. I wonder if the controversy over the Sharp case made them decide to do so or if they were just more altruistic than other climbers?
posted by Helen at 4:18 PM
48 Comments:
I have only climbed Kilimanjaro (19345 ft), but even at that altitude the effort to do things is tremendous. I'm glad that Usha was helped down, but I don't think it's a case of right or wrong. It's a case of do you have the ability to help someone without both dying.
Hmmm. They left the guy (Sharp) to die but saved the gal (Usha).
Coincidence?
I completely agree with jaycroft. I've never been on one of those expeditions myself, but I know a good dozen or so who have and know enough from their stories that Hahn and Phinjo are extraordinarily lucky that they didn't perish. The entire route above basecamp is "precarious" and is littered with corpses of both the experienced and novice for whom luck was against.
This isn't the first time that Dave Hahn has done a rescue like this on Everest.
http://climb.mountainzone.com/2001/story/html/hahn_everest.html
He's summited eight-plus times and is extremely strong and experienced at altitude -- as well as very morally courageous. Usha was found by the right guys at the right time.
I'm going to have to agree with JayCroft. above about 26,000 feet one assumes some real risk that rescue is not possible. There have been tremendous efforts like those depicted by Anatoly Boukreev on Everest, during a commercial climb gone horribly wrong. The book is called "Climb". It is amazing.
Many of those climbing Everest these days lack the skills and abilities to do so on their own. They rely on the guides and sherpas they pay to get them to the top and back in mostly one piece. The only people who might be able to haul an incapacitated person off the summit would be the guides and sherpas whose clients might well be expecting them to put their own safety first. At what point does an expedition leader compromise their responsibility for the safety of their own clients to help another climber who, like Sharp, made irresponsible decisions and as a result put himself and anyone who would have tried to help him at risk of death or crippling injury?
I'm sorry but Everest does not suffer fools lightly, and I don't expect anyone else to to do either.
The difference is that this lady was discovered by people on the way down - the previous story said that no one would stop to help the guy was about people who were on the way up. So the real question of whether people would be willing to forgo the summit experience after spending $10K on the trip to help a dying person remains unanswered. . .
@D-Day
A properly equipped expedition would charge a client around $40K, but the question remains.
Dave Hahn (the guide who rescued this climber) rescued several people in 2001. Ironically, two of them were men who were members of a large climbing company, whose climbers would later walk right by David Sharp in 2006. Sharp was up on that mountain long enough for 40 people to pass him coming down and going up. He was still alive the next morning.
I think the sex of this climber might have matttered, in that a Nepalese female might weigh half of what a male Brit does. But a day or two after Sharp died, an Australian man was rescued simply because his rescuers decided their summit wasn't worth his life. Too bad Sharp didn't climb on that day.
I wouldn't be able to pass judgement on what goes on up there, but Sir Edmund has, and he's not happy.
Hillary is given too much credibility on this subject. His feat was achieved on the backs of 12 dead Sherpas that the British expeditions left behind on Everest in getting to the top. Since his accomplishment he often surfaces to badmouth modern climbers for "soiling Everest" by also summitting Everest. It's the "room for me, not thee" form of activism.
Cost of barebones climb on Mt. Everest: $8,933.
Cost to change identity after becoming globally known as cheapskate: $13,310.
Cost of reminding the rest of us that good guys do exist: Priceless.
All sorts of factors come into play as regards rescue / don't rescue: the condition and experience of the rescuers, the condition of the stranded person when found, where found, weather conditions, available oxygen supplies, etc. When you're in one the harshest environments in the world, it's way more than just a moral issue.
Maybe it's not a coincidence that the dying woman (this year) was helped down whereas the dying man wasn't. Women typically weigh a lot less then men. Easier to deal with a 110lb sack of potatoes than a 175lb sack of potatoes. Also, maybe the woman was in better shape to help out in her own rescue.. Speculations of an amateur alpinist here.
A person who gets in trouble on Everest (or equivalent) and thereby requires assistance is a "moral criminal" who has made a choice that risks the lives of OTHER people. Nobody--certainly not the potential rescuer--gave him/her the right to take such a risk and thereby endanger others. Helping such a person is certainly not logical or reasonable, and is in fact rather stupid, since it requires the rescuer to value his/her own life less than that of the person being rescued. I think it's unreasonable and unfair to criticize the climbers who made the sensible choice of letting the ill-prepared and/or unlucky climber perish.
Helen,
I doubt the saved one cares about the motivations of her saviors. I would hope the good Samaritan helps out of love, but will take craven help looking for a payday if my life is at stake. If the Sharp case motivated them to do it then on a temporal plane that's good enough for me and enough for social cohesion.
b-b guns would be no fun in no one ever got an eye put out. What's the point of doing dangerous, crazy things if when the ca-ca hits the wind propulsion device you'll only get rescued? Where's the adrenaline rush in that?
At the very least, folks who're rescued in these and similar situations should either pay the cost of the rescue or become the servant of those who rescued them until the bill is paid off.
I *know* that idiots will be idiots, but there should be a penalty.
I believe someone just made a helicopter that could fly above the peak of Everest.
Run helicopter tours & rescues up there- then it'll be nothing special.
Fewer people will die not only because they could be easily rescued, but because the magic and adventure will be gone when you meet some fat guy from Albequerqe up there who just flew- and fewer people will try.
-Mike G in NH
Take any course on Wilderness Safety Training and you will learn quick the level of priority is as follows: 1)Yourself 2) Members of your hiking/climbing party 3) Victim.
Coming across a climber/hiker in trouble is a little different than helping an old lady cross the street in an urban environment. Two years ago I opted to help a couple in trouble while on the trail. That choice and their inability to understand the gravity of the situation nearly cost me my life.
I should have left them there. Those that opt to climb Everest or any other mountain choose their risk and better accept it. It is up to the climber to make sure they have the training, physical capability, adequate support team and gear. If you don't, that is really your problem, not that of anyone else.
Here we go: On May 14, 2005 an AS 350B3 piloted by Eurocopter test pilot Didier Delsalle set an absolute world record for highest helicopter landing and takeoff. The standard-configured Ecureuil touched down at 8,850 meters (29.035 feet) on the top of Mt. Everest.
From wikipedia.
PS.
And I object to Dr. Helen's characterization of the rescuer's efforts as the "right thing." There is absolutely no moral, ethical, philosophical or religious basis for concluding that attempting to save one life by putting another equally worthwhile life at risk is "right"--or noble, or best, or positive in any way. You might call such an effort a brave thing, a heroic thing, a magnanimous (if stupid) thing; but please don't call it the "right thing," because it isn't. There is no "right" thing to do in such a situation, and to suggest that acting stupidly and irresponsibly is "right" is in turn irresponsible itself.
Ty,
I hope you're not the one chosen to take the neighborhood kids on a swimming expedition.
T. Hazlewood
FWIW, the Sharp case is not as cut-and-dried as this blog post seems to suggest. More than a few of the "40 people" who passed Sharp thought that he was already dead, because he had chosen to lie down right next to.. another dead hiker.
Everest is an easy place to die, and when you go up there you take your life into your own hands. You are not in a public area. Carrying someone down Everest is nothing like easy, and does not gaurantee their (or your!) survival. It is not necessarily immoral for someone to pass by someone in these circumstances.
=darwin
The decision not to help someone at this altitude may sound cold-hearted, but it really isn't as simple as it sounds.
While I haven't been to 27,500, I've been to 26,000. I was on the American Expedition to Shishapangma, so I have some sense of what it is like to walk, think and breathe at that altitude. All of which happen slowly, and painfully. I found an empty oxygen bottle at our camp four location, one we believe was left behind by a prior Czech expedition. I decided to bring it down, partly as a souvenir, partly because I always want to carry out everything I carry in, plus a little more. It probably weighed 4 pounds. At sea level, one would toss it in the pack and think nothing of it. At 26,000 feet, already carrying a full pack, an additional 4 pounds caused me to think about it seriously, as it could slow me down, and that could endanger my life.
The thought of carrying another person at that altitude staggers my imagination. But then, I'm not Dave Hahn. However, I have climbed with Dave Hahn, both on Shishapangma and Denali. I'm strong, he's much stronger. I commend him for what he did, but there are only a handful of people in the world with the strength to carry a person in addition to normal gear.
I applaud his actions, but I understand the decision of anyone else who was not able to help. The key is, they were not able to help.
Phil
Yes, there are a couple of helicopters that can barely fly in the rarefied air at FL 270, if they're stripped down and flown by a lean pilot. The AS350B that did a pinnacle landing on Everest (demonstrating ability to hover up there) was stripped of pax seats and in perfect tune.
Eurocopter's test pilot (a very lean man) did it that one time and no one has done it since.
The record for highest landing was previously held by an Indian helicopter flown by HAL's test pilot, at about 25,000 feet.
My point is that helicopter operations at this altitude are experimental and demonstrative at this point. They are not practical and you can't use them to rescue people.
The highest helicopter rescue was off of everest (much lower, I think around the usual Camp III on the south route?) by a Nepalese air force pilot flying a Mil helicopter. It was one of the greatest feats of helicopter airmanship, ever.
The same lack of partial pressure of oxygen that confounds human breathing and prevents most plant life from growing, affects any engine which depends on fuel-air mixture. The low air density means that the airfoils have very few molecules to "grip" for lift.
So these guys flying helicopters at this altitude are doing something quite as extreme as the climbers are. About the only people working in a more hostile aerodynamic and propulsion environment are the ones designing aircraft for Mars.
Some posters seem to be making the assumption that those who get in trouble do it on purpose.
Making a decision to attempt to save someone while putting your own life at risk is the difference between us and other animals.
Hillary has every right to make observations about the way climbers treat the climb. I would suggest that the twelve sherpas who died (did they really) during his expedition did not do so because the rest of the team just kept going whe they could have stopped and saved them.
It does seem to me that climbing Everest has been turned into just another harder than normal adventure holiday. Maybe it is time for me to go up in my wheel chair.
This discussion is very interesting. Parallel, I think, to the discussion about our troops actions in Iraq.
Both discussions center on the actions of those faced with dire circumstances whose priorities, of necessity, have been re-ordered by those circumstances.
Yet we can sit half a world away, in safe, familiar surroundings, and comfortably pass judgment. Not to zing you, Dr. Helen, as initially my response was the same as yours. However, reading the comments has put another interpretation on events.
It reveals an unhealthy aspect of the comfortable, safe, well fed human nature.
Bob
Bob:
Iraq and Everest do have something in common, in both situations the climbers and soldiers rely upon each other to get the job done safely.
I read last year that at the height in question, due to the lack of oxygen and cold, it is very hard to concentrate and this might well play a role in the decision not to assist those in need. This is a cop out because your very thoughts should always be to how to aid those around you.
Soldiers would never walk past someone from another another section on the way out of a tight situation and I suggest to you that it is that simple with the climbers and Everest.
I am surprised that whatever agreement climbers sign to undertake the climb does not contain a clause to the effect that they will make every effort to come to the aid of any injured climbers.
I agree that it is easy for me to sit back in the comfort of my wheel chair and prognosticate about what someone should or should not do. However, I hope and pray that, if I am in a situation similar to those climbers, I make the decision to forget about the expense made to get to the top and help the injured.
I think Dr. Helen is right, as was Hillary. If you see someone dying you have a moral responsibility to at least attempt to help them. The fact you've chosen to put themselves in a position where doing so is dangerous, difficult, or expensive doesn't change that. All it changes is how easy it is to accept the responsibility. If some guides and climbers are not prepared to do so then everyone's better off if they stay on the ground and leave it to experts who will.
On a pragmatic note, maybe all expeditions should be required to contribute to a team of rescuers, and carry locator beacons they could leave with stranded climbers.
Davod -
"Should" is one of the most dangerous words in the English language. It always involves a person in one set of circumstances making a decision for a person in a different set of circumstances. Heck, it can even be myself sitting in my chair, telling myself how I should behave if I happened to find myself on Everest.
Which is okay, but the people who say "should" often try to compel people to behave that way, through shaming or laws. They may have good intentions, but we all know what paves the road to Hell.
In short, "should" is the first step on the road to attempted mind-control.
Making "should" a dirty word is what leads us to "whatever" as a guiding philosophy.
Like the commenter said above, making a decsiion before an action about what is the "right" thing to do is what differentiates us from animals and their instinctive actions. We can see the consequences of actions and make judgments about what is preferable for us all, not just the individual. What makes us different is our ability to act apart from what is easy, convenient or "safe". It is why we celebrate the actions of those work to save others and not those who save themselves.
"A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." -- John Stuart Mill
(Mill is referring to war but I thought that the fight to save the life of another applies here, too.)
Great subject: a moral dilemma. Of course, if you decide to climb mountains, you know that your odds of death are significant, and that it isn't Disney World.
In our cozy world, the hunger for risk is tremendous, but I am not sure whether we can blame those who worry about themselves if we chose those risks via free will.
Final thought: If you climb dangerous mountains, do so with the awareness that no-one will help you.
The helicopter landed on the Everest summit two days in a row and participated in unspecified rescues.
http://www.everestnews.com/stories2005/everestcopter05272005.htm
I would wager those that find it morally wrong to walk past the climber in duress would most likely be the ones to walk by. Those that think it foolish or risky to help would be the most likely the ones to help.
Some among us are destined to be heroes. They think everyone else would do the same thing. That is why we call them heroes.
Ty: A person who gets in trouble on Everest (or equivalent) and thereby requires assistance is a "moral criminal" who has made a choice that risks the lives of OTHER people... I think it's unreasonable and unfair to criticize the climbers who made the sensible choice of letting the ill-prepared and/or unlucky climber perish.
Ty nails it. I'm not sure about the poor man left behind, but lately Everest has been swarmed by adrenalin junkies with little experience being led by "tourist guides".
Watched a documentary where one group of Japaneese tourist-amatuers endangered all the climbers behind them by stopping and giving up in a narrow passage, effectively blocking the route up/down from the death zone.
[death zone: at 8,000 meters (26,250 feet) and higher, no human body can acclimatize. Staying longer than necessary will result in deterioration of body functions, loss of consciousness and ultimately, death. - wiki]
Bryan: If you see someone dying you have a moral responsibility to at least attempt to help them. The fact you've chosen to put themselves in a position where doing so is dangerous, difficult, or expensive doesn't change that.
Not me. Example: I've grown so tired of idiot drivers endangering everyone's lives that I've decided not to stop at their accident scene and render aid. Let Darwin have his way. If someone's driving like a madman and I later pass the wreck of his car wrapped around a tree, the only reason I might stop is to mock him.
Saving him might actually place innocent lives in more jeapordy.
I have been a climber since my early teens. I have friends who accomplished many "firsts" back in the 70's and 80's, and whose names you would probably recognise. I was invited to go along on several of these attempts. I never went on any of the harrier expeditions because I am a chicken.
It's life and death up there. If you are too beat to help someone else, you are both going to die, simple as that.
You do your best, but it ultimately comes down to whether both of you will die, or whether the stronger will survive.
Since that time, many services seem to guarantee a safe summit and return. But those expectations are unrealistic and contrary to the spirit of mountaineering in the first place.
It's not about bragging rights at cocktail parties. And when the reality sets in, when you are hypoxic, freezing, and the weather is closing in around you, the pre-tragedy expectations are discarded very quickly.
Your thoughts turn to simply surviving, hoping beyond hope that you can reach someone who can send in a fresh rescue party, and a smattering of composing the explanation to your buddy's wife and kids your decision leave him on the mountain.
I don't think there are many real mountaineers who would have it any other way...
Lord Jim
And although I have never been in combat, I believe that it's entirely different because you are attempting to overcome nature, rather than a thinking enemy who is planning your distruction whether you want to engage him or not.
The decision to go is completely personal, as is responsibility for the results.
It seems to me there are 3 options that passing climbers have in this situation:
1. They do their best to save the other climber's life.
2. They cannot assist the other climber because the attempt would result in extreme risk or certain death.
3. They refuse to assist the other climber because they don't want to give up their chance to reach the summit.
I applaud those who choose option 1, which is certainly done at great personal risk, and I understand those who in good faith choose option 2. But I pity those who choose option 3.
Most deaths from occur on the way down, not on the way up, unless you are talking about HAPE or HACE, the victims of which hardly ever reach the summit.
Tomcal,
I don't understand your point but it seems important to you that the climber was descending when she became impaired. I don't see why that matters so you need to explain it to me.
As for me, I don't care if the impaired climber was going up or down. Similarly, the reports show that she was passed by ascending and descending climbers, as did the story about the British climber who died last year. The issue isn't what direction the climbers were going but what motivated them not to help.
Given the harsh circumstances of high altitude climbing, I doubt anyone can be sure if it is safe to help - but the other climbers know what motivated them to pass on by. To the extent the passing climbers did nothing because they didn't want anything to mess up their costly climbing experience, shame on them.
Here's a question--If it is immoral to pass an injured Everest Hiker--who will surely die without aid and may die with it--then is it immoral to keep both my kidneys? Someone else will die because they did not receive a transplant that I, with two healthy kidneys, could have given them.
Sure, there are risks to my life in giving a kidney, but there are risks to a hiker's life in trying to help another hiker.
I would give up a kidney immediately to a family member who needed one. But, I haven't volunteered to be a donor for a non-family member.
drj:
Agreed 100%. Personally I would never put reaching the summmit ahead of trying to help someone I came across on the way up. I would much rather come back and say that I failed to reach the summit, but I saved someone's life.
My point about descending, and more deaths ocurring during that phase, is that after having reached the summit, most climbers are in a race against their own impending death to get down to thicker air, stashed oxygen bottles, shelter, etc. They are usually not in any condition to help anyone.
Also, with the advent of the guided expedition, many of the clients don't possess the skills to affect a rescue, even if they wanted to.
I am against these for-profit guided "adventures". I wish we could go back to the days of one team making an attempt, but I am afraid they are over.
Great debate and talks going on here. As an Everest climber (5 expeditions), guide, and photographer who has been a rescuer on many Everest expeditions and on other mountains around the world, this topic hits close to home. I am also a good friend of Dave Hahn's, having climbed with him on Everest and elsewhere for 15 years.
Anyway, to me, the answer is simple: It is the right thing to do to help a climber in need. There is no question about it. There are, of course, variables such as your teammates, your physical condition, etc. In the case of a guide and client relationship, the guide's primary responsibility is with his/her clientele, and thus any rescue situation must be evaluated with their immediate safety and needs in mind.
Likewise, if you or your teammates are exhausted and getting involved in a rescue might end up killing you, then the first responder's axiom of never becoming an additional victim of course hold true.
However, in many situations on Everest and elsewhere, neither of these questions apply. Rescues are possible, and as climbers - as people - it is our responsibility to do what we can to help others in need.
Personally, while one is understandably tired when descending from the summit of Everest, you should not be so at the end of your proverbial rope that you cannot assist someone in need. If you are that exhausted, chances are IMHO that you should not have been going to the summit in the first place!
I write a lot about this issue on my blog and discuss it in my keynote presentations (www.mountainworldproductions.com), and think that the at times callous attitude of climbers towards others on the mountain definitely reflects a frightening ideal within our society as a whole. The obsession with climbing Everest does the same.
Anyway, I won't babble - great post, great discussion!
All the best,
Jake Norton
Mr. Norton,
Thanks for stopping by and weighing in--I look forward to reading more at your blog.
At Crater Lake yesterday, twice I was put in the position where I might have had to perform S&R duties for people who were doing really really stupid stunts on the mountain. There was no cell phone service in the area so calling for help would have been impossible. As far as I was concerned this was two times too many. Since I don't have health insurance and am not interested in putting my health and safety at risk I opted to leave the park. Read the blog if you want the full story.
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