Days on Everest when people are injured or die start like any other day. Such news arrives at any time and it quickly circulates around Base Camp. It is discussed and forgotten. We all know the risks, and the grieving process is better left until the expedition is over.
On 20 April 1996 I awoke early at Camp 2. I had been suffering from an altitude-induced headache and I wanted to get back in order to recover in the thicker air at Base Camp.
I left camp at around 6 a.m. and for a short time I seemed to have the Western Cwm to myself. On my right side towered the south-west face of Everest and, on my left, looking equally large from my viewing angle, stood the north face of Nuptse. Small, early morning avalanches tumbled silently down their slopes, but how wonderful that power looked in such an otherwise tranquil setting.
The descent route took me first down a short gully, where I turned left at a junction marked by a dead body wrapped in a blue plastic cover. Who he or she was, or how he or she got there, no one knew. The person had become an anonymous climber, who had at one time arrived at Base Camp with the same desires and ambitions which I had when I arrived seven days before. It was also not clear why the body had been left at this point in the middle of the Western Cwm. Perhaps bad weather had hit whoever had been carrying the body downwards. Later that season the body was finally taken down.
There are many bodies on Everest. Some are hidden in unknown resting places, following falls, and others can be seen, but cannot be retrieved, while some are high, and to bring them down is unrealistic. But there are others which can be reached and brought down and gradually the mountain is being cleared of its grim relics.
From where this body was resting, the route swept out on to the gently descending floor of the Western Cwm. On the descent the bamboo marker wands which mark the route were passed far more quickly than they were during the crawling ascent twenty-fours hours earlier. At the top of each wand were red flags, which helped to indicate the route in poor visibility. On that day they hung limply in the windless morning air.
After 1,500 metres or so the route passed close to Nuptse before it meandered through the crevasses of the lower part of the Western Cwm. A few ladders acting as bridges had to be crossed between there and Camp 1. These too were included in the daily maintenance schedule of the Icefall Doctors, who had the day before turned up at Camp 2 for lunch, having begun their work from Base Camp well before first light.
From my view down to Camp 1, I could see climbers starting the short, but tiring, journey up to Camp 2. These climbers were the first I had seen that day. Their relative size in contrast to the surroundings demonstrated the vastness of the Cwm and the sheer size of the mountains on either side.
Camp 1 can be anywhere in the lower part of the Western Cwm. In 1996 we placed our camp very close to the top of the Icefall. This appeared sensible to me, because after the exhaustive climb up from Base Camp, it was only a short stumble to the tents to seek rest and recovery. Other teams chose to put their camps higher up in the Cwm, to shorten the walk to Camp 2. The highest camp in 1996 belonged to Scott Fischer’s Mountain Madness team and, on reaching their site, it was still a kilometre or so down to the start of the Icefall.
Just before the lower camps, the route skirted under the slopes of the west ridge of Everest, before cutting back left at right angles across the top of the Icefall. Here there were some more precarious bridges. This section of the route changes more than other part, as the ice speeds through a narrowing gap between Everest and Nuptse to plunge over the lip to the valley below.
Without stopping for rest that day I continued on downwards with an increasing feeling of well-being, as the thickening oxygen started to have an effect. Just below the top of the Icefall, I stopped to talk to Ginge Fullen who was making his way up to Camp 2. Ginge was a British Royal Navy diver who had been awarded the Queen’s Gallantry Medal when he rescued lorry drivers from the car ferry, the Herald of Free Enterprise, when the ship capsized moments after leaving the Belgian port of Zeebrugge in 1987. He was a fairly quiet man, but I liked his obvious sincerity. I bade him bon voyage as I continued my downward journey.
The journey down from Camp 2 to Base Camp took three hours, and I arrived in time for breakfast with my fellow team members. Not long after my arrival, Mal received a radio call, and gave me the shocking news that Ginge Fullen had suffered a suspected heart attack near the top of the Icefall, presumably moments after I had passed him. Some Sherpas who were with him at the time were bringing him down and other climbers and Sherpas resting at Base Camp left to go and assist with the rescue. Given the circumstances, they took some oxygen cylinders with them.
Through binoculars we watched as the procession slowly moved back to Base. Fortunately, Ginge was able to walk for short distances, but it was clear from the number of rest stops that he was very weak. We could see two descending climbers who appeared to overtake the procession. This did seem strange, because in such a situation any help would be welcome, particularly if Ginge collapsed and had to be carried down.
It later transpired that one of the climbers was Charlotte Noble, formerly the doctor on the South African team. After being sacked by Ian Woodall during the walk-in, an event which led to the mutiny by most of the South African team members, Noble had continued up to Base Camp. To climb above Base Camp requires climbers to be on a recognised expedition permit, and if they are not on a permit the penalty is severe. Noble was not on a permit and rather than use her professional medical skills to assist in Ginge’s rescue, she decided to pass by quickly, one assumes to minimise the risk of being caught illegally climbing in the Icefall. Noble was probably unaware that so many eyes were looking upwards and the jungle drums beating at Base Camp had already notified the Nepalese liaison officer that there was a problem. Climbers often turn a blind eye, but when a fellow climber in trouble is ignored, particularly by a doctor whose help would have been particularly appreciated, justice is quickly dealt out. When Noble arrived at Base Camp, she was met by the senior Nepalese liaison officer who gave her hours to vacate camp, failing which she would be fined $10,000, the cost of each climber’s share of a permit to climb Everest.
Meanwhile, the party bringing Ginge down was making very slow progress. Crossing the bridges was causing significant delay, because Ginge had to rest each time to ensure that he had the strength to make the short crossing in safety.
Late in the afternoon the party arrived at camp and Ginge was placed in a tent where he was cared for by Caroline Mackenzie, the doctor with Rob Hall’s team. There are normally several doctors dotted around teams on Everest. Some are specialists, and Ginge was lucky that Caroline was able to seek advice over the radio from heart specialist Stuart Hutchison, who was high on the mountain at the time.
The doctors were very concerned about Ginge’s condition and an early evacuation by air was needed. I tried to reach Kathmandu using the large satellite phone in our dining tent. It was, however, Saturday in Kathmandu when most businesses are closed and, despite trying several numbers, I was unable to contact anyone.
I then decided to phone my wife, who was a doctor working with the Gurkhas in Hong Kong. I knew that she would have the number of the duty officer at the British Gurkha barracks in Kathmandu. Ginge was, in any case, a member of the British armed forces and such a request would receive priority assistance. She phoned me back some time later to tell me that she had spoken to an officer in Kathmandu and a helicopter would arrive at Base Camp first thing in the morning.
Ginge passed a difficult night and there was a growing concern for his condition. At first light he was carried down to the helicopter landing site. Seeing him lying there, wrapped in a sleeping bag and breathing oxygen through a mask, it was difficult to imagine that he was the same person, full of ambition, who I had met at the top of the Icefall only twenty-four hours earlier.
Ginge had to wait for almost three hours at the landing site, but just before 9 a.m. we heard the wasp-like drone of the approaching helicopter. Fortunately, Ginge recovered and was able to continue his venture to climb the highest mountain in every European and African country, a feat he accomplished in 2005.
The following week the British armed forces public relations team in Hong Kong decided that the story of this rescue may be of interest to a wider audience and they issued a press release to newspapers in the UK. It was, therefore, with a great deal of alarm that a week later my sons, Daniel and Thomas, and daughter Nicole saw an article in a newspaper with the headline ‘British Climber Suffers Heart Attack on Everest’, with a picture of me below it. Fortunately, it became apparent that my picture was there because of my telephone call to Hong Kong to arrange for the helicopter.
Bizarrely, the story achieved wide coverage within the British Press, who were misleading readers by saying that I had made the phone call using a mobile phone and several of the articles were accompanied by pictures of well-known brands of mobile phones. Most headline writers seemed to see this as a heaven-sent opportunity to make full use of their headline writing skills. My favourites were: ‘Off-peak Call Saves Climber’, ‘High Love, I Am Stuck Up Everest’ and ‘Summits Up’ – the latter typical of the UK’s Sun newspaper.
On 30 April I was at Base Camp having a rest when the news came through that one of the Danish members of our team, Kim Sejberg, had fallen in the Icefall. It was not exactly clear what had happened. He had been found lying in the snow by climbers from the IMAX team, who were a group of world famous climbers making a film of their ascent of Everest. Together with our Base Camp manager, Mick Burns, Finish climber, Jaakko Kurvinen, and some of our Sherpas, I climbed up to help Kim get back to Base Camp.
Trying to climb quickly through the Icefall to assist an injured climber is a particularly exhausting and painful experience. By the time we reached Kim we were all wrecked and it took a while for us to recover sufficiently to be of any use. Fortunately the Austrian climber, Robert Schauer, who was a member of the IMAX team, had stayed with Kim until we arrived to take over the evacuation.
Kim had suffered broken ribs, a badly damaged knee and cuts to his head. But most significant was the look on his face, which showed very clearly the extent of his devastation, having realised that his injuries were sufficiently bad for him to have to abandon his attempt to climb the mountain. Kim was in great pain and each step was its own nightmare journey. His accident had happened about 300 metres above Base Camp, right in the middle of the Icefall.
On the descent, we had to stop frequently. Kim was becoming more and more exhausted, and was clearly on the verge of collapse. Supporting him across the bridges was becoming a significant problem and I doubted that we could reach the bottom of the Icefall before nightfall.
Eventually we staggered into camp, and Kim at last received the much-needed medical attention. We had lost two team members in a fairly short time – both in relatively unusual circumstances and relatively low on the mountain in the Icefall.