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Why Everest death toll refuses to reduce
London: More than 50 years after Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary conquered Mount Everest, the death rate for every successful ascent remains the same, and this despite the improvement in technology, acclimatisation, better equipment and established routes. If Andrew Sutherland, a doctor and an accomplished climber is to be believed, mountaineers' attempts to go beyond their altitude ability is the main reason behind the high percentage of fatalities. He said injuries and exhaustion sustained by the mountaineers during the climb and the descent were among the other main reasons for the increase in number of deaths.
A
large proportion of climbers also die from altitude related illness, specifically
from high altitude cerebral oedema (HACE) and high altitude pulmonary
oedema (HAPE), he said in an article in the British Medical Journal. He
said the death rate for a Mount Everest expedition remained the same at
one for every 10 successful ascents. For anyone who reached the summit,
they had about a one in 20 chance of not making it down again, said Dr.
Sutherland. He said, this year, the unofficial body count on Mount Everest
had already reached 15, the most since the disaster of 1996 when 16 people
died, eight in one night following an unexpected storm. Dr Sutherland,
who was on the north side of Everest as the doctor on the Everestmax expedition,
said he was shocked by the both the amount of altitude related illness
and the relative lack of knowledge among people attempting Everest. "On
our summit attempt we were able to help with HAPE at 7000 metres, but
higher up the mountain we passed four bodies of climbers who had been
less fortunate. The last body we encountered was of a Frenchman who had
reached the summit four days earlier but was too exhausted to descend.
His best friend had tried in vain to get him down the mountain, but they
had descended only 50 metres in six hours and he had to abandon him,"
he said. "Some people believe that part of the reason for the increase
in deaths is the number of inexperienced climbers, who pay large sums
of money to ascend Everest. In my view, climbers are not climbing beyond
their ability but instead beyond their altitude ability. Unfortunately
it is difficult to get experience of what it is like climbing above Camp
3 (8300 metres) without climbing Everest. Climbers invariably do not know
what their ability above 8300 metres is going to be like," he added. As
such, climbers need to think less about 'the climb' and more about their
health on the way up, he said. "If climbers make the ascent too slow,
it would mean there is something wrong and chances of successfully making
it back from the mountain would seem remote. But with the summit in sight
this advice is too often ignored," he said. He said when he visited the
French consulate in Kathmandu to confirm the Frenchman's death, the consul,
not a climbing or an altitude expert, shook his head and said: "He didn't
reach the summit until 12.30; that is a 14 hour climb - it is too long".
-Aug 25, 2006
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