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Ailing Everest climber rescued
26/05/2007 17:00 - (SA)
Binaj Gurubacharya
Kathmandu ? A woman who became seriously ill in Mount Everest's "death zone" had reached base camp safely, Nepalese mountaineering officials said.
Uma Bista of Nepal was "barely coherent" and had cerebral edema, or swelling of the brain, when she was found at 8 300m on Monday, said veteran United States climber Dave Hahn.
In internet dispatches, Hahn said he and other climbers in his group were descending from the summit when they came across Bista.
He and the others managed to carry Bista to a lower camp and handed her over to a British team, on the mountain on a medical research mission.
"Seems like she's going to recover, and that's pretty impressive. We didn't think she'd make it," Hahn said in his dispatch posted on greatoutdoors.com.
Krishna Bhandari of the Nepalese Mountaineering Department said on Friday that Bista was "at the base camp and safe. We are trying to arrange a helicopter to bring her back to Kathmandu".
Last year, British climber David Sharp died after dozens of climbers passed him on the well-travelled route to the summit through the northern side of the mountain in China.
Sharp's death sparked debate and questioned ethics of climbers on Everest. Some climbers have given up their chance to step on the top of the world to save fellow mountaineers desperate for help, but there are many who have simply continued their journey without stopping to offer aid.
The final and most difficult part of Everest, the area above 7 900m, is nicknamed the "death zone". Rescues at such altitude are difficult because of the thin air, high winds, icy slopes and exhaustion.
Climbers afflicted with high altitude cerebral edema - a sudden, potentially fatal swelling of the brain, display confusion, hallucinations and semi-consciousness and need to descend immediately.
- AP
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