Everest Part 2: Unanswered Questions

The unanswered question that some have regarding the death of David Sharp is “IF” – if assistance was provided and a rescue attempted, would he still be alive today? It is a question that cannot be answered, and one that I’m not addressing here.

The questions I have surround the decision to not attempt to rescue him. My immediate reaction after reading the original article in the NZ Herald was “how can 40 people walk past a dying person”, which changed to “I wasn’t there so what the hell would I know whether it was right or wrong”, and now after trawling through the internet it’s changed again.

First, some background information. Everest can be climbed by two routes; the south route (through Nepal) and the north route (the Chinese/Tibet side). All the drama was happening on the north side. The northern ascent of Everest has an Advance Base Camp at around 6,400m, and three further “camps” higher up (i.e. places where you can pitch a tent) with the highest being at 8,300m (Everest is 8,848 metres).

Inglis was climbing Everest as part of a group led by Himalayan Experience. The dude running Himex is a fellow Kiwi by the name of Russell Grice. By the looks of it, Himex are the “Rolls Royce” of mountain guide companies when climbing Everest from the north side (and have prices to match).

Attempting to “knock the bastard off” from the north side pretty much involves leaving the camp at 8,300m well before dawn, climbing to a ridge with three rock climbs (known as “steps”), get on top, take a photo and get the hell out of there and back down as far as possible before dark (preferably to a camp at 7,700m)

Next timing. Inglis climbed Everest on May 15. While I cannot verify this, it is a reasonable assumption to assume Sharp climbed or attempted to climb Everest on May 14. Any earlier and I think you can safely assume even his eyes wouldn’t be flickering by the time Inglis came across him.

So with that in mind, let’s start off with the original interview with Inglis that ignited this whole thing, which aired on TVNZ’s Close-up on May 22:

Reporter: “Mark has also come back to questions about a British climber who laid dying as he made his ascent”

Inglis: “And it was like, what do we do? Y’know, we couldn’t do anything. He had no oxygen, he had no proper gloves, things like that. I believe I’ve copped a wee bit of flak …”

Reporter: “Well yes, someone has suggested that maybe you should have stopped the ascent and rescued this man”

Inglis: “Absolutely. Yep, it’s a very fair point. Trouble is at 8,500 metres it’s extremely difficult to keep yourself alive, let alone keep anyone else alive. On that morning, over 40 people went past that young Briton. I was one of the first, radioed and Russ said look Mark, you can’t do anything. He’s been there X number of hours, been there without oxygen, y’know he’s effectively dead. So we carried on. Of those 40 people who went past this young Briton, no-one helped him except for people from our expedition.”

It’s unfortunate Inglis mentions 40 people as that’s what people have jumped on. That’s rather a lot of people walking past a dying man. What Inglis left out (I’m sure innocently and unintentionally) was that the largest group climbing Everest that day was his, from Himalayan Experience. If you check the Himex website, Newsletter No.8 reports that 15 people from this expedition summited on May 15, including 8 Sherpas and other guides. An earlier newsletter (no.6) states that Team 2 (Inglis’ team) consisted of 20 people, of which only 6 were clients. So the reality is somewhat different to the perception many no doubt have that there were scores of teams walking past Sharp all day long and Inglis’ team were the only people “willing to help”. I suspect there were actually only 2 teams climbing that day (more about that later).

My first unanswered question, given the number of experienced people in that group, surrounds Inglis’ implication that the decision was made by Grice, who wasn’t even there. Fast forward to the follow-up interview with Inglis that aired on Close-Up on May 24:

Inglis: “David was just so incredibly frostbitten. He was completely rigid – just a small flickering of the eyes …he was effectively dead … it was sometime after midnight as we were climbing past, some of our Sherpas – as I’ve said very experienced people – checked him out and y’know, I guess their opinion. We climbed on. Our Sherpas gave him more help somewhat later and, including oxygen and, but y’know David passed away.”

Now I assume when climbing Everest a large group such as Himex Team 2 aren’t walking together holding hands – more like a bunch of stragglers scattered along the summit ridge. That would explain the comment that some of the other Sherpas gave him help later on. However that just begs another unanswered question if some of the Sherpas “later on” gave him some help, what did the Sherpas and/or guides with Inglis actually do apart from “check him out”?

So my uneducated guess is the people with Inglis thought Sharp was beyond help and Grice told them to keep going. Trouble is, others later on tried to assist him so how much “beyond help” was he?

Trying to unlock the sequence of events is the key in trying to understand. By Inglis’ own admission, he was “one of the first there”, and there “sometime after midnight”, i.e. the early hours of May 15. Time to introduce some further information.

From the Everestmax expedition comes this account:

"This started while we were still basecamp visiting another team to say goodbye. While we were there we heard their radio communications with their clients. They had come across a near-dead climber with severe frostbite of his face and all 4 limbs. He had been at 8,500m for at least 24 hours and all he said was that he wanted to sleep."

When first reviewing Inglis’ May 22 TV interview, I wondered how, if Inglis was one of the first there, did they know “he’s been there X number of hours”? Well, this gives us an idea, the X is 24 (which may not be true – more about that soon), but more importantly, the phrase “all he said was that he wanted to sleep” suggests that Sharp was at least in a state to indicate, by audible means apparently, that he wanted to sleep. Compare that to Inglis on May 24: “he was completely rigid, just a small flickering of the eyes – he was effectively dead”. Even allowing for the fact that accounts coming off the top of Everest are never completely accurate, something just doesn’t add up.

I initially wondered how accurate the “he had been at 8500m for at least 24 hours” was. It led me to try and ascertain exactly where Sharp was and for how long. There is a pretty picture (or not, depending on your point of view - it's rather startling to see Sharp wasn't too far away from Camp 3) at the Explorersweb site which shows Sharp was found at 8,400m. So what about the 24 hours?

Sharp was either on the way UP or the way DOWN. If he was on the way UP, then others that climbed on May 14 (including another large group from Himex) would have come across him on the way down. So it’s pretty obvious that Sharp got into trouble on the way down – and probably was one of the last coming off the top that day (as surely if others descending had passed him in trouble, they would have done something, surely?). I did see somewhere (but didn't keep the link) that it is thought Sharp was late in leaving for his summit climb.

So X = 24? If getting in trouble on the descent, and at 8,400m (a lot closer to Camp 3 than the summit), then X is a lot less than 24. While he may have perhaps been on the mountain 24 hours, he would have been in trouble for much less.

One of the misunderstood parts of this tale is that people think Sharp had no oxygen. While he was attempting to climb Everest without O2, there are reports he took 2 cylinders of O2 with him, so it is more correct to say “he ran out of oxygen”. When he used it and where of course no-one knows.

Another myth spread is no-one can be rescued in the “Death Zone”. Well of course that got well and truly debunked with the rescue of Lincoln Hall a few days ago, from 8,600m by the way. But there is another rescue, not reported, that happened on May 18th, and you can read about it here - go to the News section and click on page 2 at the bottom. A guide, Jamie McGuinness managed to get a client off the mountain that got into difficulties at the summit - yes, at the summit.

McGuinness also sent an email to Explorersweb which had this to say about David Sharp:

"Dawa from Arun Treks also gave oxygen to David and tried to help him move, repeatedly, for perhaps an hour. But he could not get David to stand alone or even stand resting on his shoulders, and crying, Dawa had to leave him too. Even with two Sherpas it was not going to be possible to get David down the tricky sections below."

Dawa? Arun Treks? Hang on, Inglis told us that no-one apart from members of his own expedition (Himex) helped Sharp.

Stumbling across the website of the Turkish Expedition explains a lot. Also summiting on May 15 were members from this expedition, and an entry dated May 16 explains their summit expedition on May 15 consisted of it seems 7 Turkish climbers and 8 Sherpas. It also recounts how one of the Turks got into trouble at 8,600m and was assisted down by four people, two of the Turks and two Sherpas, including Dawa Sherpa. And the website states their expedition was using the assistance of Arun Treks.

There are a few things to come out of this:

1. The “40 people” climbing Everest on May 15 were actually just two expeditions (plus maybe a few independents) – Himex (20ppl?) and the Turks (15+ppl?).


2. The Turkish Expedition website states that one of their climbers got into trouble at around 3 o’clock (i.e. a.m.) at the second step (8,600m), and after another 2 hours she managed to get up and start going back down with the aid of four people – who would therefore have come across Sharp at some time (well) after 5 a.m. on the way down. At that time, one or perhaps both Sherpas reportedly spent an hour trying to help him.


3. Inglis’ statement that no-one apart from his expedition helped Sharp is pure fiction – not that I’m accusing him of lying, more I suspect through not being aware.

As I said, the key to understanding is working out the sequence of events.

I. Sharp climbed Everest on May 14 and was on his way down when he got into trouble. One of the mysteries still remaining is what sightings of him were made on this day by others (including Himex Team 1)?
II. Members of Himex Team 2 (including Inglis) came across him in the early hours of May 15. The decision was made (how? by whom?) not to attempt any rescue.
III. Assistance was provided to Sharp, by both of the main teams climbing that day, but what intrigues me if you’re not going to try and rescue the guy, why bother giving him some oxygen (which is a rather precious commodity on the upper slopes of Everest)? Remember Sharp was encountered early into the day (actually, before dawn) by these people – giving away oxygen to someone who is “effectively dead” when you have about 80% of the ascent left to do (not to mention the descent) and the potential for problems of your own just doesn’t make any sense - even allowing for the fact that these teams probably have spare supplies. To be honest, it smacks of "tokenism".
IV. Sharp was presumably still alive well after 5 a.m. as a Sherpa (or two) spent an hour with him around this time. If he was “effectively dead” just after midnight, why wasn’t he “actually dead” sometime after 5 a.m.?

Unanswered questions. There are quite a few. Not would Sharp have made it off the mountain alive – but was he really that “effectively dead” to make any rescue attempt futile? Was he completely rigid with eyes barely flickering or did he actually utter a few words? If he was “effectively dead”, why give him oxygen? Rescues from the “death zone” are not impossible – but it takes the collective willpower and efforts of more than just a few people. To the people who first came across him and would have been aware that there were a substantial number of people, including by my count around 15 sherpas in total and other mountain guides, coming up the mountain behind them, was this imminent amount of support taken into account before deciding to “climb on”? Why, given the assessment by those who came across him after midnight as “effectively dead”, would a Sherpa at a time sometime later than 5 a.m. spend an hour trying to help him when he had his own sick climber to worry about?

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. And despite the tenor of this, I still feel criticism of Inglis or any others is not warranted. They had to make a difficult decision “in the heat of battle”. Judging the merits of this decision is not my prerogative or anybody else’s. The problem is, with only half the story out it leaves the other half to be the subject of speculation. Remember the Commonwealth Games cyclists anybody? What hindsight does give us is enough questions that should prompt those involved to give out further details, if only to clear the huge amount of misinterpretation (no doubt including mine) that currently exists in an issue that has received global media coverage. Unfortunately, the code of silence that usually exists surrounding Everest deaths has re-emerged after the public statements made by Inglis. Perhaps those involved – especially the mountain guide companies who make a living from Joe Public climbing Everest – might need to reflect on the damage continuing speculation will have on their business. Actually, that might be a good thing.

This has been like completing a jigsaw puzzle with only half the pieces, getting that half finished and then coming to the realisation that if you had all the pieces, you might not like the picture at the end. I doubt if the full story will ever come out into the public domain, but after all the reading on Everest I’ve done, I don’t think I want to hear it anyway.

Everest Part 3 remains on the back-burner (where it will probably remain for a while).