大象传媒

Evacuation

• Graham
• 31 May 07, 04:48 AM

This expedition has been a huge success. Nearly everyone on the summit team got to the top, and the vital arterial blood samples were taken at around 8500 metres.

I had an interesting interlude. I'd got a bit of a cold at base camp and when we heard of a rescue going on I foolishly headed UP the mountain instead of DOWN . I plodded up to Camp 2 through the wonderful silence of the Western Cwm and promptly keeled over on arriving mid-afternoon.

Next morning I was able to film the arrival of Usha Bista, the 22 year-old Nepali girl climber who had been found unconscious and alone at the Balcony. An old friend from my Mallory expedition, Dave Hahn of IMG had discovered her after returning from his own successful summit attempt. Despite his weariness he gave her Dextamethazone and oxygen and organised her rescue. Members of our own expedition took over her medical care and looked after her evacuation. When I saw her she had some frostbite to fingers and toes but what was upsetting was her rage at having been left to die by her team-mates. We are very used to hearing stories about Western climbers walking past dying colleagues, but this was an all-Nepali expedition. What was worse was the fact that her expedition leader had been with us the day before and had promised faithfully to send up Sherpas and oxygen to her aid. Then he just disappeared. I have no doubt that she would have died without the help she did receive.
After we'd filmed the overnight radio traffic from the successful summit attempt I filmed Pasang arriving with the precious blood samples, just two hours from the Balcony to Camp 2- surely a record. The blood was duly tested and filmed.

Next morning, feeling rather feeble, I decided to head back down the hill. Usha was bundled up and brought down too. As we approached the top of the Icefall one of my companions clipped into the fixed ropes. At that moment a huge block of ice fell off with a roar and a cloud of white ice-smoke. It was no more than two metres from us, it took out a section of ropes and my heart sank: of all days to have to start abseilling down the bloody Icefall! Ten seconds later and it would have killed us.

Anyway, we got down eventually and we started to get proper attention: thank God for the doctors on this expedition and particularly Mark Wilson the medical officer. I'm not going on any more trips like this in the future without at least 40 doctors.

Mark organised a helicopter rescue, paid for by the 大象传媒. Usha was going to come along for free. Her alternative was a horse.

Next day we were loaded into a huge Russian helicopter which was piloted by an interesting character named Sergei. Both he and his chopper look like veterans of the 1980s Russian war in Afghanistan. He dresses in polyester slacks and shirt as if he's ready for a spot of gardening, but he controls a monster of amazing power and violence: the down-draft is enough to send stones spinning in all directions. We took off and in minutes followed the path that had taken us weeks to follow. Ousha slept throughout until we arrived at Jiri, where we were offloaded to wait for an Army helicopter. This pilot was under instruction, so we were treated to aerial versions of a three-point turn and an emergency stop. But the most scary part of the day was being in a siren-waving ambulance in the Kathmandu rush-hour: far riskier than the Icefall.

Lying safely in hospital I contemplated the future: altitude is clearly bad for you, Graham. Maybe you should take up sailing?