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Dozens of climbers walk by a dying man on Mt Everest...

Folanator

Brawndo's got electrolytes...
<table style="width: 618px; height: 2076px;" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td class="headlineblack" style="padding: 5px 0px 10px;">Not sure what you could do. I think I would try and slide him down. He has a better chance of getting out of the death zone. If he dies from the fall...oh well.
Say a prayer and move on?
</td></tr><tr><td class="storytext" style="padding-bottom: 10px;">Wednesday, May 24, 2006
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Three Climbers Die Descending Mount Everest


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Mt. Everest Avalanche Injures Climbers





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WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Mount Everest pioneer Sir Edmund Hillary said Wednesday he was shocked that dozens of climbers left a British mountaineer to die during their own attempts on the world's tallest peak.
David Sharp, 34, died apparently of oxygen deficiency while descending from the summit during a solo climb last week.
More than 40 climbers are thought to have seen him as he lay dying, and almost all continued to the summit without offering assistance.
"Human life is far more important than just getting to the top of a mountain," Hillary was quoted as saying in an interview with New Zealand Press Association.
New Zealander Mark Inglis, who became the first double amputee to reach the mountain's summit on prosthetic legs, told Television New Zealand that his party stopped during its May 15 summit push and found Sharp close to death.
A member of the party tried to give Sharp oxygen, and sent out a radio distress call before continuing to the summit, he said.
Several parties reported seeing Sharp in varying states of health and working on his oxygen equipment on the day of his death.
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Inglis, who was due to arrive back in New Zealand on Thursday, said Sharp had no oxygen when he was found. He said there was virtually no hope that Sharp could have been carried to safety from his position about 1,000 feet short of the 29,035-foot summit, inside the low-oxygen "death zone" of the mountain straddling the Nepal-China border.
His own party was able to render only limited assistance and had to put the safety of its own members first, Inglis said Wednesday.
"I walked past David but only because there were far more experienced and effective people than myself to help him," Inglis said. "It was a phenomenally extreme environment; it was an incredibly cold day."
The temperature was minus 100 at 7 a.m. on the summit, he said.
Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay in 1953 became the first mountaineers to reach Everest's summit. Hillary said in an interview published Wednesday in a New Zealand newspaper that some climbers today did not care about the welfare of others.
"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 told the Otago Daily Times.
"I think the whole attitude toward climbing Mount Everest has become rather horrifying. The people just want to get to the top," he told the newspaper.
Hillary told New Zealand Press Association he would have abandoned his own pioneering climb to save another's life.
"It was wrong if there was a man suffering altitude problems and was huddled under a rock, just to lift your hat, say 'good morning' and pass on by," he said.
He said that his expedition, "would never for a moment have left one of the members or a group of members just lie there and die while they plugged on towards the summit."
Three climbers, from Brazil, Russia and France, died descending Everest in separate expeditions in the past week, a Chinese official said Tuesday.
More than 1,500 climbers have reached the summit of Mount Everest in the last 53 years and some 190 have died trying.
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I don't know what you can really do, I mean every climber that makes the trip up the mountain has to accept the risks and know that something tragic could happen.

Everyone knows the risk when they get behind the wheel of a car, but that doesn't mean they don't deserve to be helped if they're involved in an accident...
 
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Everyone knows the risk when they get behind the wheel of a car, but that doesn't mean they don't deserve to be helped if they're involved in an accident...

Exactly. I mean he would have more than likely died, either way. But you still need to help the guy out. At least slide him down the fucking hill, and give the guy a chance of surviving, at the least.

Hopefully, (although it's probably a stretch) the climbers brought down his body to give back to the victims' family and country.
 
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Exactly. I mean he would have more than likely died, either way. But you still need to help the guy out. At least slide him down the fucking hill, and give the guy a chance of surviving, at the least.

Hopefully, (although it's probably a stretch) the climbers brought down his body to give back to the victims' family and country.

I'm not saying they should just climb right by him and not say anything, but if there is nothing they can do to help him, and he decided to go out on his own on the first place, then there is nothing more you can do. You can't exactly just "slide him down the hill" because you don't know if he is for sure going to die for sure, and you don't want to be responsible for pushing him off a cliff. I'm also sure that the climbers up there are worried enough about keeping themselves alive, let alone trying to help a stranded climber.
 
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Well I know that everyone should deserve a chance to be helped, but there aren't too many ambulances at the top of Mt. Everest...

So, if you come upon an accident scene, you won't render aide until the ambulance arrives? They could've given him some oxygen and moved him to a lower elevation to where he could at least breath well enough on his own to get a sufficient oxygem supply to his brain. Instead, their personal goal of reaching the top was more important to them than someone else's life.
 
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So, if you come upon an accident scene, you won't render aide until the ambulance arrives? They could've given him some oxygen and moved him to a lower elevation to where he could at least breath well enough on his own to get a sufficient oxygem supply to his brain. Instead, their personal goal of reaching the top was more important to them than someone else's life.

An accident scene and Mt. Everest are two completely different things. I doubt any climber would be able to spare any oxygen, considering they have their own life to take care of. Also, you don't know the condition of the climber when the others came by, and also on how far away you were from a safe breathing zone.

Besides, you don't know if someone offered him help, and maybe he turned it down. Or maybe they thought he was already dead when they got to him, or at the point of no return.
 
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An accident scene and Mt. Everest are two completely different things. I doubt any climber would be able to spare any oxygen, considering they have their own life to take care of. Also, you don't know the condition of the climber when the others came by, and also on how far away you were from a safe breathing zone.

Besides, you don't know if someone offered him help, and maybe he turned it down. Or maybe they thought he was already dead when they got to him, or at the point of no return.

No, an accident scene and Everest are NOT that different...both have victims in need of immediate help from those present. You think climbers only have enough oxygen for themselves? Obviously you're not a scuba diver (where you're taught to give "buddy breathing" assistance to a diver short/out of air). Same situation here.

If those people climbing up past him had enough oxygen to get themselves to the summit, they sure as fuck had enough oxygen to stop their accent and help this guy back down. They placed getting to the top over helping a fellow climber out, period.
 
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An accident scene and Mt. Everest are two completely different things. I doubt any climber would be able to spare any oxygen, considering they have their own life to take care of. Also, you don't know the condition of the climber when the others came by, and also on how far away you were from a safe breathing zone.

Besides, you don't know if someone offered him help, and maybe he turned it down. Or maybe they thought he was already dead when they got to him, or at the point of no return.

Well, if that group of climbers was in good enough health (which I assume they were), then they could have helped the guy out. I don't really want to hear bullshit about the guy not being in good enough health and "he wasn't going to makie it, anyway." Just stay with the guy until he passes on or medical attention arrives.
 
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So, if you come upon an accident scene, you won't render aide until the ambulance arrives?

Car full of nuns? Probably so.

If an aggressive and erratic driver caused an accident on a busy highway and helping him would put my life in direct and serious danger I would have to think it over.

These guys know what is at risk and they know the risks they are taking to help someone else. The article clearly states he could not have been saved. Getting near the top of Everest takes a heck of a lot more planning and effort than it takes to get on the freeway. For most this is a once in a life time event that involved tremendous effort.

I would be quicker to condemn someone who went up there expecting others to put their lives at risk.
 
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No, an accident scene and Everest are NOT that different...both have victims in need of immediate help from those present. You think climbers only have enough oxygen for themselves? Obviously you're not a scuba diver (where you're taught to give "buddy breathing" assistance to a diver short/out of air). Same situation here.

If those people climbing up past him had enough oxygen to get themselves to the summit, they sure as fuck had enough oxygen to stop their accent and help this guy back down. They placed getting to the top over helping a fellow climber out, period.

No, it is not the same thing. You don't carry "extra" oxygen at 29,000 feet. It's basic common sense.
 
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No, an accident scene and Everest are NOT that different...both have victims in need of immediate help from those present. You think climbers only have enough oxygen for themselves? Obviously you're not a scuba diver (where you're taught to give "buddy breathing" assistance to a diver short/out of air). Same situation here.

If those people climbing up past him had enough oxygen to get themselves to the summit, they sure as fuck had enough oxygen to stop their accent and help this guy back down. They placed getting to the top over helping a fellow climber out, period.

Uh, they are two radiaclly different things. Everyone who makes an attempt at the Everest summit has been made aware that this scenario is a very real possibility by their support team and guides. It's essentially an unwritten rule that if you are responsible for yourself during a final attempt at the summit. Assisting someone else in those conditions puts both of your lives in extreme peril along with everyone else who may be behind you either driving for the summit or making their way back down. Only the very best mountineers in the world are capable of extending help, and that can have very fatal consequences (check out the great book "Into thin Air" for a prime example of what can happen with the some best climbers in the world try to help people out). The notion that someone could be slid down to safety at that altitude and those conditions is simply false. The drops are too extreme and the chance of starting an avalanche aren't worth the risk.
 
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