NZer involved in Everest rescue

A former Aucklander on Mt Everest has directed the rescue of a sick climber from the summit, with a party of 18 Sherpas helping to get the commercial client back down the mountain alive.

Jamie McGuinness, a New Zealander who runs treks around Everest and leads climbing expeditions, had to take a climber he had escorted to the top of Everest back down the mountain, according to the head of another expedition, Anne Parmenter.

"Our sister expedition 'The Peace Project,' summitted on (May) 18 but have had an almost 36-hour rescue effort for one of the members," she told the mounteverest.net website, run by ExplorersWeb.

"With the support of 10 of our Sherpas and at least eight Sherpas from the Peace Project, the member was carried in a litter all the way from the North Col.

"If it hadn't have been for the efforts of Jamie McGuinness and two Sherpas who managed to walk the member all the way from the summit of Mount Everest, this person would not have survived," said Parmenter, who has been running the Aspen Aerogels team.

McGuinness, who lives in Kathmandu, runs the Project Himalaya trekking company, but turned out as climbing director for the Everest Peace Project, reaching the summit with a total of 10 climbers from around the world.

In a separate report to ExplorersWeb, McGuinness also commented on the controversial death of Briton David Sharp, who apparently summitted on May 14, but ran out of oxygen on the way down, and over the next two days was seen in various states of confusion and distress.

He died after being seen by New Zealand double amputee, Mark Inglis, who was in a large commercial expedition run by Russell Brice.

Sherpas from Brice's Himalayan Expeditions team tried to give Sharp oxygen but Inglis said the climbers were told by Brice, over the radio, that Sharp had been too long on the mountain to be saved.

Inglis said about 40 climbers walked past Sharp on May 15, the day Inglis went on to the summit of Everest.

McGuinness told ExplorersWeb that a Sherpa named Dawa from Arun Treks also gave oxygen to Sharp "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, who did not summit because of giving his oxygen to David, told this to me less than 24 hours later when I met him on the fixed ropes. He was close to tears even then.

"At the time I thought the climber may be David Sharp, who had climbed with me twice, but it was only when I was on the way to the summit I had this confirmed when we passed him. A very sad moment. He was dead by then (May 18)."

- NZPA