Unprepared climbing teams risk others' lives

The organisation which took double-amputee Mark Inglis to the top of Mt Everest rescues inadequately prepared climbers all the time, say New Zealand mountaineers.

Phil Doole, who with Inglis had his frostbitten feet amputated after becoming trapped on Mt Cook in a blizzard in 1982, said that every year Himalayan Expeditions - known as Himex and run by New Zealander Russell Brice - bailed people out.

"As one of the strongest expeditions on the mountain, that's the sort of role that falls on them."

Doole pointed to Himex's website and an entry going back to 1999 which talks about the deaths of Polish and Belgian expedition leaders.

"These were under-resourced teams which did not turn back when they should have," says the website.

"They put other people's lives and summit chances at risk when they need rescuing."

Brice is at Everest base camp and could not be contacted, but the Weekend Herald spoke to a selection of New Zealanders involved in mountaineering about whether Inglis' expedition should have done more to save Briton David Sharpe, who they passed on their way to the top and who died.

This is what they said:

PHIL DOOLE
Double amputee:

"Just about every season they've [Himex] ended up having to rescue people. What that means is that Russell or whoever's in charge has to decide the balance of resourcing and the oxygen supplies, whether they can support such a decision being made ...

"It looks like a lot of people are trying to climb Everest - particularly from the north side - under-resourced and it's unfortunate that other teams and expeditions such as Russell's are put in the position of having to decide whether they can help them or not."

LYDIA BRADEY
A New Zealander and the first woman to reach the summit without oxygen:

"[Russell Brice] has basically jeopardised multiple expeditions with his clients to save people who just go up quite ignorantly.

"I expect that it was a carefully considered decision, not by Mark, but by Russell ... and he would not be happy about leaving somebody on the mountain."

JOHN GLUCKMAN
An amateur climber from Warkworth who reached the summit of Everest in 1993:

"You should never leave a person to die. But it's the job of the strongest and fittest one ... it's not the job of a person with artificial legs to help. That would be expecting far too much."

MIKE BROWNE
President of the New Zealand Mountain Guides Association:

"It's not worth gaining the summit if you could have possibly saved someone along the way.

"There's no sort of guiding ethic that suggests anything that you climbed is more important than you climbed to the top at the cost of helping someone on the way up.

"People don't understand how dangerous Everest is. It's probably a hell of a lot more dangerous than going to war."

ELIZABETH CLAYTON
Widow of New Zealander Roger Buick who died on a solo Everest ascent in 1998:

"I have some strong views on Everest issues, mainly based around the desire of man to go beyond their natural limitations - and for what?

"From Roger's diary found on him ... he could possibly have lost his own life by going off course/off the rope to check out a person who he assumed was in trouble.

"The guy apparently had died many years before and his body was laying uncovered. Roger's glove was found under a stone near the body. He was probably suffering from altitude sickness and never put his glove back on.

"Roger did the right thing even if it may have cost him his own life.

"What have those climbers achieved?

"I think it is absolutely abhorrent that this man was passed by if there was life in him."

DR DICK PRICE
Oldest New Zealander to reach the summit [he was 49, now 59] and a medical adviser to the Mountain Safety Council:

"It's very difficult to make a decision from the armchair. Only those who are at the coal face can really make that decision.

"It's probably easier for someone who is medically qualified to make that sort of decision, and a lot of mountaineers are quite well qualified in first aid."