Remember the "heroic" double amputee that climbed everest?
- Thread starter Tenchiro
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Beck Wethers.LordOpie said:
I subscribe to the theory that if you can't climb a mountain without supplementary oxygen then you shouldn't be up there. The whole commercialization of Everest is distasteful in my view and the practice of climbing upwards past people who are dying is immoral.LordOpie said:
I wasn't there and I have no idea if they could have saved him but the Beck Wethers story proves that no one can easily tell. If they gave him oxygen then they did try a little at least.
Reinhold and Gunther Messner
On July 17, 2005, as a freakish heat wave bore down on Pakistan's western Himalayas, the 26,660-foot peak Nanga Parbat gave up its dead, laying them out on thawing patches of the Diamir Glacier, a huge expanse of shifting ice more than 12,000 feet below the summit. Over the decades, the glacier had become a catchall graveyard for at least a dozen climbers who'd died on the Diamir Face, the treacherous western wall of the world's ninth-tallest mountain.
.......
At first the guidesAbdul Mateen, Faz al-Haq, and Abdul Mananthought the body could have belonged to any number of men lost on the western flank in recent years. But when the talus yielded a leather boot entombing a wool-socked foot, they knew they'd probably stumbled across an older tragedy, since plastic footwear had replaced leather after 1980.
This, they realized, could be the body of Günther Messner.
Günther, the younger brother of Reinhold Messnerthe 61-year-old Tyrolean climber widely considered history's greatest mountaineerwas by far the most famous MIA on Nanga Parbat, and, a few years back, Reinhold had specifically asked the Pakistani guides to search for him. Günther, 24, had gone missing in June 1970, when he and Reinholdthen 25made a daring first ascent on the south flank of the peak via the 14,763-foot Rupal Face, one of the tallest alpine walls on earth.
The feat was a stunning success for two young climbers on their first Himalayan expedition, but only Reinhold lived to tell about it. As he described the tragedy later, Günther was stricken with altitude sickness soon after they summited, on June 27, and was too debilitated to backtrack down the sheer ascent route, particularly since they had no rope. After a sub-zero bivouac, followed the next day by a much debated episode in which Reinhold shouted to other climbers at a distance but somehow didn't or couldn't convey Günther's plight, the brothers apparently decided that their only chance of survival was to pick their way down the unfamiliar but less steep Diamir Face. If they succeeded, they would score another coup in the process: the first complete traverse of Nanga Parbat.
According to Reinhold, near the end of the descent he'd pushed an hour or so ahead of his brother, believing the worst was behind them. Then, out of viewin an area toward the bottom of the Diamir FaceGünther disappeared in what Reinhold assumed was an avalanche. He could find no trace of Günther. Grief-stricken, Reinhold staggered on for the next two days before finally making it to safety in the Diamir Valley.
In the aftermath, the damage to Reinhold's body and soul was immense. He lost seven toes and several fingertips to frostbite. Worse, he'd lost his beloved brother and the climbing partner he once called his life's "accomplice."
"Günther!" he'd shouted endlessly as he searched for him on Nanga Parbat. "It was the anguished cry of a lost animal," he wrote later. "I had suffered. I was badly frostbitten. I had died."
......
Within months of the trip's end, tensions between Messner and expedition leader Karl Maria Herrligkoffer, fed by their conflicting versions of what had really happened to Günther, erupted into a series of lawsuits. Messner accused Herrligkoffer of manslaughter and "neglected aid" in his brother's death, and Herrligkoffer accused Messner of libel. The suits' outcomes didn't resolve the underlying acrimony, and, after a period of surface calm, the fracas restarted in 2001 when Messner harshly criticized his former teammates in public, saying they hadn't bothered to search for the missing brothers and, in effect, had failed to render assistance during an emergency. For a mountaineer, whose loyalty to his comrades is supposed to be paramount, it was the worst insult imaginable.
In subsequent months, Messner advanced his attack both in the German media and in The Naked Mountain, his 2002 book about Nanga Parbat, in which he employs a dreamy, semi-hallucinatory style to describe his bewilderment and anguish when his teammates did not come to the rescue.
On July 17, 2005, as a freakish heat wave bore down on Pakistan's western Himalayas, the 26,660-foot peak Nanga Parbat gave up its dead, laying them out on thawing patches of the Diamir Glacier, a huge expanse of shifting ice more than 12,000 feet below the summit. Over the decades, the glacier had become a catchall graveyard for at least a dozen climbers who'd died on the Diamir Face, the treacherous western wall of the world's ninth-tallest mountain.
.......
At first the guidesAbdul Mateen, Faz al-Haq, and Abdul Mananthought the body could have belonged to any number of men lost on the western flank in recent years. But when the talus yielded a leather boot entombing a wool-socked foot, they knew they'd probably stumbled across an older tragedy, since plastic footwear had replaced leather after 1980.
This, they realized, could be the body of Günther Messner.
Günther, the younger brother of Reinhold Messnerthe 61-year-old Tyrolean climber widely considered history's greatest mountaineerwas by far the most famous MIA on Nanga Parbat, and, a few years back, Reinhold had specifically asked the Pakistani guides to search for him. Günther, 24, had gone missing in June 1970, when he and Reinholdthen 25made a daring first ascent on the south flank of the peak via the 14,763-foot Rupal Face, one of the tallest alpine walls on earth.
The feat was a stunning success for two young climbers on their first Himalayan expedition, but only Reinhold lived to tell about it. As he described the tragedy later, Günther was stricken with altitude sickness soon after they summited, on June 27, and was too debilitated to backtrack down the sheer ascent route, particularly since they had no rope. After a sub-zero bivouac, followed the next day by a much debated episode in which Reinhold shouted to other climbers at a distance but somehow didn't or couldn't convey Günther's plight, the brothers apparently decided that their only chance of survival was to pick their way down the unfamiliar but less steep Diamir Face. If they succeeded, they would score another coup in the process: the first complete traverse of Nanga Parbat.
According to Reinhold, near the end of the descent he'd pushed an hour or so ahead of his brother, believing the worst was behind them. Then, out of viewin an area toward the bottom of the Diamir FaceGünther disappeared in what Reinhold assumed was an avalanche. He could find no trace of Günther. Grief-stricken, Reinhold staggered on for the next two days before finally making it to safety in the Diamir Valley.
In the aftermath, the damage to Reinhold's body and soul was immense. He lost seven toes and several fingertips to frostbite. Worse, he'd lost his beloved brother and the climbing partner he once called his life's "accomplice."
"Günther!" he'd shouted endlessly as he searched for him on Nanga Parbat. "It was the anguished cry of a lost animal," he wrote later. "I had suffered. I was badly frostbitten. I had died."
......
Within months of the trip's end, tensions between Messner and expedition leader Karl Maria Herrligkoffer, fed by their conflicting versions of what had really happened to Günther, erupted into a series of lawsuits. Messner accused Herrligkoffer of manslaughter and "neglected aid" in his brother's death, and Herrligkoffer accused Messner of libel. The suits' outcomes didn't resolve the underlying acrimony, and, after a period of surface calm, the fracas restarted in 2001 when Messner harshly criticized his former teammates in public, saying they hadn't bothered to search for the missing brothers and, in effect, had failed to render assistance during an emergency. For a mountaineer, whose loyalty to his comrades is supposed to be paramount, it was the worst insult imaginable.
In subsequent months, Messner advanced his attack both in the German media and in The Naked Mountain, his 2002 book about Nanga Parbat, in which he employs a dreamy, semi-hallucinatory style to describe his bewilderment and anguish when his teammates did not come to the rescue.
Some people know the right thing to do and some people have the courage to do it. Some people don't.
Slagging on Hillary for having an opinion, especially by people who have never been there, is laughable.
Slagging on Hillary for having an opinion, especially by people who have never been there, is laughable.
They should've gone in the summer so it wasnt so cold and snowy.
I dunno. Can't you just more or less buy a ticket to the top of Everest now? Get yerself hauled up the mountain by a team of real moutaineers? I figure, once you've decided to climb Everest, you've more or less decided that death is an option. Would I risk my life to help out a guy who made a stupid call to begin with? Probably. Once I started feeling like it wasn't going to work out, I'd probably cut the rope, take the oxygen, whatever. At least I'd have tried to help. Easier to live with than not getting to the top of a mountain.
And yeah, summer would have been a way better time to go. Guess that guy decided to go in the off season. Makes it a little cheaper, and less noisy tourists to deal with...
And yeah, summer would have been a way better time to go. Guess that guy decided to go in the off season. Makes it a little cheaper, and less noisy tourists to deal with...
I'd have sliced him open and climbed inside to keep warm a la Luke Skywalker. If I had no legs, I'm sure I'd fit......
The sherpas have lightsabers now?!
Good point, however here is an excerpt from the linked story:DRB said:
So basically, the people who were there and saw the situation firsthand, made an informed decision.
And then some asshat scientist, who as far as we know has never climbed anything but a flight of stairs into his office building, suddenly thinks he knows better?
There is also the question of how much additional risk would be entailed to those bringing down a man who almost certainly would die.Echo said:
It's certainly not as bad as some of the incidents from 1996 where dying men were completely ignored.
Saving a life at the risk of your own is a personal decision. I wouldnt take a bullet for just anybody. Yeah, you "might" live with a gunshot wound, but your odds arent so good compared to if you hadnt been shot at all.
Get outta town. Sage words right there people. If only Solomon had had such wisdom.BurlyShirley said:
Did you fail to apply the logic to the topic at hand, or are you just being an ass?valve bouncer said:Get outta town. Sage words right there people. If only Solomon had had such wisdom.
Actually, why would I even ask that....I know the answer.
Go have a shower or something. That soil borne vaginitis seems to be particularly irritating you today.BurlyShirley said:Did you fail to apply the logic to the topic at hand, or are you just being an ass?
Actually, why would I even ask that....I know the answer.
No....Inglis has no legs to stand on....unless he straps them on. My argument has all the legs it needs.LordOpie said:
The guys on the mountain said, "This guy's toast." Screw all you armchair quarterbacks.
I wasnt actually irritated. I meant to put one of thesevalve bouncer said:Go have a shower or something. That soil borne vaginitis seems to be particularly irritating you today.
Or something manlier and less gay.
This is like the article posted awarding a "Darwin award" to a random motorcycle accident. People thinking they can make informed judgements on a situation they know nothing about.Echo said:
The riding analogy is inaccurate and inappropriate. Let's add something to it to make it appropriate: you see a fellow rider who has been shot in the head lying on the side of the trail. He looks like he's probably going to die, no matter what you do, and getting him to a hospital requires you riding through a live mine field. Do you chance dying to save someone who will likely be dead anyway? This isn't a guy with a broken leg who you help limp to the trailhead and call an ambulance.
Quotes like these are even better:
I'm sure that's what they did.Everyone has to play the bleeding heart and say that a climber's life is the responsibility of other climbers, but without having been there, in that situation, at that time, nobody knows if the right decision was made.
I thought some more about this last night.
Mountain climbing is notorious for difficult decisions which at sea level might seem unnecessarily harsh.
I am sure the climber who died would not have wanted any "heroic" measures taken. I would hope anyone climbing Everest would have the same attitude.
I should point one thing though. Unfortunately for all the climbers who ascended Everest, the issue of money will cloud all their intentions. Was it more important to make to the top than to make even a futile attempt to save another's life?
Did these guides leave this dying climber because of fiscal responsibility to their clients?
Mountain climbing is notorious for difficult decisions which at sea level might seem unnecessarily harsh.
I am sure the climber who died would not have wanted any "heroic" measures taken. I would hope anyone climbing Everest would have the same attitude.
I should point one thing though. Unfortunately for all the climbers who ascended Everest, the issue of money will cloud all their intentions. Was it more important to make to the top than to make even a futile attempt to save another's life?
Did these guides leave this dying climber because of fiscal responsibility to their clients?
Then discussion of this should simply end.binary visions said:
They call it the 'death zone' for a reason.
DRB said:
And I find it very difficult to believe that out of every single climber that walked past this guy, NONE of them had the courage to do it. I think it's much more likely that he was either beyond help, or it wasn't actually clear that he needed help until it was too late.DRB said:
Like I said I've spent a lot of time with climbers and alpinists (though I haven't climbed seriously in years, myself), and can say that very few of them lack the morals or the courage to do the right thing. You don't pick a climbing partner that is anything but a person with whom you trust your life in the most literal sense, and you don't get to be a partner unless you are worthy of that trust. It's a pretty self-regulating system.
Everest is a bit different because it's become such a circus, but like I said, I find it hard to believe that EVERY climber that day was lacking.
Dr Phil Ainslie in case you were wondering is an experienced high altitude climber and has studied hypoxia (effects of the lack of oxygen on human physiology) to a degree that makes him one of the worlds best experts on the subject......I'd say that he knows his **** better than you Echo.Echo said:
Please explain why your such an expert on this situation?
Have you ever been up there?
Have you ever studied hypoxia?
This guy has done both!
I never said I was an expert.DaveW said:
I said the people who were there shared their oxygen with the guy and radioed for help, and concluded that the guy couldn't be saved.
So for you, or me, or Dr. Expert Whatever to pretend to know anything about the situation is stupid.
NO what you said was people who were there made an Informed decision......it was an ill informed decision acording to someone with more experience in that area of expertise.Echo said:
your arguement is akin to claiming that historans and Archaeologists, cannot get anything right as they were not there.
Yep well to me the MEDICAL EXPERT with high altitude experience say's they concluded wrong, and I'd consider his opinion on medical situation to be worth hearing and not instantly dismiss as an "asshat who knows nothing and never done more than climb stairs" as you originaly claimed him to be.
Changleen said:
good thing they were prosthetics!!!!
had they been the real deal, that would have been the end of the trip.
and that would have sucked so much.
ALEXIS_DH said:
How do you know?
Were you there?
No?.... well then according to Echo's special theory of alpine relativity your now an asshat!
kidding :love:
Has your scientist hero summited Everest? Either way you chose to believe the scientist and I chose to believe the actual climbers who were there. Neither of us have been there so it's silly for us to argue. I was stating my opinion based on the story and the information I have about Everest from books and movies. Overall my opinion hasn't changed, but I'm glad you pointed out that the scientist was indeed a climber and not just some asshat. I guess living under the rule of the US government, I'm used to asshats spouting off about things they know nothing aboutDaveW said:
Being a different case it proves nothing - if someone can move by themselves then they stand a much better chance of being rescued. If the guy from the Ingliss incident was immobile and unconscious after being given osygen it's really quite a different situation.DaveW said:
I read the book too and think you're right on point. JMHO.
Interestingly, in the news today an Australian climber was reported to have died near the top and was left there by the Sherpas (who had toiled for 9 hours to bring him down). Later in the day another group came across him and found he was actually alive and a rescue is now under way.
Edit- link to story still unfolding- www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200605/s1648773.htm
Edit- link to story still unfolding- www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200605/s1648773.htm
Archeologists aren't trying to determine if Cro-magnon man's moral judgements were correctDaveW said:
Historians are forced to guess because of a lack of sufficient firsthand information. It'd make their lives a heck of a lot easier if they had some firsthand info... you know, maybe some people who were there and actually had to make a decision at the time?
Here, we have first hand information. Thirty guys passed this dude by and said he couldn't be helped. I'll believe that any day over a guy in an office ten thousand miles away who is guessing as to what the poor dude's health was like.
Where do you get hot tea at 28000 feet?
besides a BA flight.
besides a BA flight.
Bit slow on the uptake killer, get with it.sanjuro said:
