Mountain Misadventure, Part 2

I wanted to add an anecdote a friend told me last night after watching the movie Everest. This is severely edited because he is an amazing story teller, and added a lot more details. He could fill up an entire episode with this story. He went with his wife, his brother, and his brother’s wife to climb Kilimanjaro. The brother’s wife found the guide group, who ended up being very negligent. There was a 5th person in their party that decided not to take the pills that help with breathing because she wanted to do it ‘au naturale’. The guides took their blood oxygen levels every morning and evening, but were fudging the numbers to avoid sending anyone back. The 5th party’s oxygen numbers got fudged the most. The guides constantly downplayed the dangers and didn’t really pay any attention to warning signs that things were wrong. Near the top, two of the sherpas were carrying the 5th person UP THE MOUNTAIN, and she was clearly a bit out, and her lips were blue, of it when my friend’s group passed her on the way back down. A storm developed right before they got back to camp. When they got back to the base camp, they had a quick meal and then tried to go to sleep. About an hour after bedtime, my friend heard some rustling, and got up to see what was happening. He found the 5th party hunched over a table in the food tent, passed out and completely soaking wet. Four sherpas had carried her back into camp, tossed her on the table and LEFT HER THERE, PASSED OUT. Her lips were completely blue, and she was barely breathing. My friend got the rest of his people together, and they stripped her of her clothes, put their dry clothes on her, and tried to bring her around. She was moaning, and incomprehensible. They realized that she probably had the fluid swelling in the brain problem (cerebral edema?). They found a med kit and pumped her full of an anti-inflammatory. At this point, they realized they really needed to get her off the mountain, and they had to go out into the camp, find a guide from a different group, and get them to call in for a rescue. All the next day, the guides were constantly giving them misinformation about the condition of the girl. Fortunately, they discovered two days later that she had survived the ordeal, and they visited her in the hospital. She sued the guide company for negligence.

4 Responses

Amanda M says:

July 29, 2015 at 7:08 am

Just saw this today! http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2015/07/22/meru_sundance_winning_climbing_documentary_looks_both_nightmarish_and_inspirational.html
Derek Weber says:

July 31, 2015 at 10:49 pm

I was wondering if you were going to mention Aron Ralston (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aron_Ralston), the guy who went canyoneering in Utah, got his arm pinned under a boulder, was stuck for 4 days, and then cut his own arm off to free himself. It was the basis for the Danny Boyle film 127 Hours. I haven’t watched it, but it sounds like a pretty gnarly story. Kinda counts as mountaineering.

Great, gruesome stuff guys. Amazing stories. 🙂
Jon Paynter says:

August 7, 2015 at 10:08 am

You mentioned Ranulph Fiennes in this episode (I can’t remember whether it was pt 1 or 2). You could do a whole episode on just that guy, with so many disgusting and disturbing facts that you probably wouldn’t be able to fit them all in. It would probably fit somewhere in between “Mad men in history” and “Evil men in history”.
Karyn says:

September 29, 2015 at 10:06 am

I wanted to add an anecdote a friend told me last night after watching the movie Everest. This is severely edited because he is an amazing story teller, and added a lot more details. He could fill up an entire episode with this story. He went with his wife, his brother, and his brother’s wife to climb Kilimanjaro. The brother’s wife found the guide group, who ended up being very negligent. There was a 5th person in their party that decided not to take the pills that help with breathing because she wanted to do it ‘au naturale’. The guides took their blood oxygen levels every morning and evening, but were fudging the numbers to avoid sending anyone back. The 5th party’s oxygen numbers got fudged the most. The guides constantly downplayed the dangers and didn’t really pay any attention to warning signs that things were wrong. Near the top, two of the sherpas were carrying the 5th person UP THE MOUNTAIN, and she was clearly a bit out, and her lips were blue, of it when my friend’s group passed her on the way back down. A storm developed right before they got back to camp. When they got back to the base camp, they had a quick meal and then tried to go to sleep. About an hour after bedtime, my friend heard some rustling, and got up to see what was happening. He found the 5th party hunched over a table in the food tent, passed out and completely soaking wet. Four sherpas had carried her back into camp, tossed her on the table and LEFT HER THERE, PASSED OUT. Her lips were completely blue, and she was barely breathing. My friend got the rest of his people together, and they stripped her of her clothes, put their dry clothes on her, and tried to bring her around. She was moaning, and incomprehensible. They realized that she probably had the fluid swelling in the brain problem (cerebral edema?). They found a med kit and pumped her full of an anti-inflammatory. At this point, they realized they really needed to get her off the mountain, and they had to go out into the camp, find a guide from a different group, and get them to call in for a rescue. All the next day, the guides were constantly giving them misinformation about the condition of the girl. Fortunately, they discovered two days later that she had survived the ordeal, and they visited her in the hospital. She sued the guide company for negligence.