UKC

I think it is absolutely repulsive to prioritise going for a summit over providing aid (whether rescue or comfort) to a stricken climber.

I think that the mountaineering associations, guiding companies and other interested parties need to get together and agree a set of principles that they promote as widely as possible. I’m not thinking of laws or regulations (they may or may not be a good idea, I don’t know), but an ethic or code of conduct that we see as being fundamental to how we do things.

Something along the following lines:
1. Providing aid to a stricken climber always takes priority over your summit.
2. Aid may involve rescue, but where rescue is not possible, you must provide comfort to the dying climber. Simply having someone else with them so that they do not die alone is vital. The fact that someone is unresponsive does not prove that they are dead: this is medical fact.
3. You have a responsibility to enlist other climbers in providing aid, be it rescue or comfort.
4. The stricken climber should not be abandoned until either it is unambiguous that they are dead or until the risk of you becoming another casualty becomes too high.
5. If you do ignore these principles and bag the summit, the climbing community will regard your ascent as fundamentally tainted and not a worthy or valid achievement,

This ethic already exists to a significant degree but needs to be promoted much more widely and especially among (and probably at first from the outside towards) the commercial expeditions. It should be promoted from top down but also bottom up on forums like this.

(fwiw my own Himalayan experience is very limited - one climb completely self-organised with some mates yonks ago)

I would add the following points:

Someone who is unresponsive may still be aware of your presence and value it. Someone who is unresponsive may even revive - either spontaneously or with the provision of warmth or water - to an extent where they can be rescued. Even if you cannot rescue someone, you can comfort them and others may arrive who can rescue them.

In reply to ericinbristol: I'm not disagreeing with you, far from it, but on a summit day, should all 10, 20, 60, 200(?) people be prevented from summitting by one injured person, or how do you decide who does/doesn't summit? If it's 'first on scene helps', then I can see this resulting in people being reluctant to be the first to set out...

In reply to owlart:

Glad you agree the principles. Inevitably there will be issues around how to act on it and such complexities would involve judgement calls. But when people do try to help we already have plenty of examples: those getting there first provide immediate aid, then those best able to provide whatever it is that is needed do so. That involves communication, commitment to ethics. It is extremely unlikely to involve 200 people in every camp on a big mountain at the same time. People regularly get helped down mountains while others, knowing there is sufficient help, continue to climb.

In reply to ericinbristol: Compleatly agree Shame we don't all think the same

In reply to ericinbristol:

Just ask yourself where, in the scheme of "purity of ascent" ; being hauled up over the dead bodies of your fellows sits.

I also think that by prioritising the summit over helping a fellow human that person is putting a price on another human life about £35k, so not a lot really.

In reply to andic:

Agreed.

1. Mostly agree. Depends how far they are gone
2. Absolutely not. Im not letting myslelf or other members of a team freeze to death while waiting on someone to die
3. Rescue if possible yes.
4. No more victims
5. I think that happens anyways.

In reply to owlart:
>should all 10, 20, 60, 200(?) people be prevented from summitting by one injured person

I admit I am completely ignorant of altitude and rescue methods, but wouldn't having 200 people in a line snaking down the mountain make a rescue easier ? With appropriate coordination, a human chain could get the casualty down fast with minimum holdups for most.

In reply to ericinbristol: I think that is a great idea - completetley agree with all points made in the op - in skiing you have a code of conduct to a much lesser degree where by you are not allowed to leave a scene of an accident, not a law like you say, although in some countries it is, but it is more a code of conduct, with posters etc everywhere. It wouldnt hurt to have a page at the front of all the major guidebooks with a 'code of conduct' title, and then maybe 7 or 8 bullet points in real simple language. If it was kept in the same format and colours throuout the different guides etc, and maybe with the addition of some posters at the indoor walls, the 'code of conduct' would become recognised by all. Having said all that, im not sure the 'climbing' community are the ones it needs advertising to, but rather the mountaineering community - maybe teachcing it to childeren as part of the duke of edinburough scheme would be a good start by grounding people as they are young with the right principles, as they are the ones likely to go on to be the mountaineers of our future, how you would go about marketing it in the existing mountaineering world i wouldnt know though :/

sam

In reply to blob737: just to point out as welll to those who feel they need not stay at an accident scene - in france, austria and germany(they are the ones i know of although im sure there are more) - it is a criminal offence not to wait at the scene and do everything in your power to assist, leaving them for whatever reason other than to get superior help would be seen as not doing that. the punishment for failing to do any of this is imprisonment - i see no reason for this not to be adopted by all legal systems.

In reply to Gone: I agree, if it takes that many people to efect the rescue, then so be it. However, if it's a case of 'comforting the dying', how many does that take? Do others summit whilst 'someone else' does the comforting?

In reply to blob737: Out of interest, how many people have to remain at the scene? Is it everyone who comes across it, or just those who are actively helping? Just curious as I could envisage a scene where in a busy place there's an ever growing number of people accumulating around the accident unable to move on!

In reply to radson:


That's not what I advocated. I accept that a stricken climber can be abandoned when 'the risk of you becoming another casualty becomes too high.'


Not enough as can be seen from the case being discussed.

In reply to owlart:

I've addressed this already.

In reply to owlart:

Isn't the answer very obvious. You come across someone in distress who's being attended to, you ask if you can help in any way and if there's nothing you can do you move on.

Common sense isn't it?

To the OP, yes sensible set of principles which I think most climbers already hold but need to be pointed out the non climbers. If they knew that was the score when they handed over their cash then there would be less pressure on the guides to push on at the expense of those in distress.

In reply to Removed User: Common sense, yes, but common sense and the law don't always go together. It was just a silly example, but if the law simply stated that you can't leave the scene of an accident (as opposed to those attending can't leave, other passers by can) then it just amused me to think of an ever crowing crowd getting stuck there until dismissed later! *note smiley*

In reply to ericinbristol: A code of conduct is a good idea. But is it getting to the stage where each expedition / person needs to put a % into funding a rescue co-ordinator/team whose sole purpose is to assess casualties and decide if the option is "comfort" or "rescue"?

In reply to owlart: well the laws all state "The law also requires you to stop and render aid if people need help, even if you are not a party to or did not witness the accident." From that statement i would assume it includes everyone who bumps into it. but i understand your point i think the law is supposed to be taken with a degree of common sense surrounding it. if the emergency services were already there i doubt you would be expected to stop for example.

In reply to blob737: the problem is the media will make a heroin out of this girl. People are dead or dying left up there, also I dont have £35k in this climate. Where has all the principle s gone ogf organising your own expedition. Should we blame the likes of Kentin Kool who gets paid to guide people, the likes of Jaqgged Globe should they be hed responsible for this happening, taking people out of their comfort zone to die on a high mountain.

I fully understand the reasons to climb Everest but surely its a circus now!!!

In reply to stuart58:

Thing is, has anyone bothered to check whether the quote from her is accurate (or in context), or even true at all?...

The example mypyrex gave where he did a trek to EBC, and the media decided it wasn't interesting enough so they sexed it up a tad, is pretty common. I've seen it several times, whether it be in a corporate magazine or a local paper.

Oh, on a bigger level I've also seen the BBC knowingly publish an outright lie just to make a story; anyone remember the 2008 OMM 'rescue' story, and their 'we published a fair picture of the events' comment when hundreds of people wrote to complain?...

Maybe it is true, but then given the above examples, I wouldn't be at all surprised if it turned out to be the work of some bored journalist exercising some artistic license to the max....

I'm not qualified to say what is right or wrong concerning Everest summits and stricken climbers.

But I can see a problem that I think needs to be considered. And that is whether or not any set of ethics makes the prepared and competent responsible for the unprepared and/or incompetent.

Someone who decides to climb Everest has made a personal decision to accept that they are putting themselves in a situation with some risk of serious injury or death. But if they are then also responsible for other climbers on the mountain, then they are being put at additional risk which is not under their own control or completely by their own choice. And with stories of "climbers" being taught how to belay and how to put on crampons when on an Everest climb, the additional risk that is being introduced is significant.

I am not saying what is wrong or right in this situation as I am not competent to do so. So I'm just raising this as a point as I'd be interested in what those who are competent to say, say about it.