Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 27/11/24
12 minutes ago
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Chilling contrast
Experts believe that if someone on their way to the top of Everest had been prepared to forgo success to help a distressed climber who had run out of oxygen, he might not have died. When I read this I couldn't help but think about the Tasmanian miners who risked their lives each day to rescue their trapped workmates.
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8 comments:
Wow, forty people passed him. It reminds me of a certain parable. Probably doesn't remind anyone else of that parable in our happy clappy new age world.
He put himself in that situation through his own stupidity and suffered the consequences....now we are blaming a double amputee for not throwing him on his back and lugging him down Everest. The guy was too far gone and as I understand it Ingills team were the only ones to stop and try to assist.The great Kiwi knocking machine rides again.
I disagree James. I don't think this is the great Kiwi knocking machine. I think this is people having a debate about ethics (which is good) based on the 'facts' as we know them.
My understanding is that it is such an effort to get yourself up that high (and back down), if you get in trouble you can't expect help.
nobody's suggesting for one moment that Inglis should have "thrown him on his back" and carried him back down.
But there's something very wrong when a man who MAY have been saved is simply passed by in the rush to the summit.
If climbers passing him had enough oxygen (plus spares) to reach the summit, then surely they had enough to abort the climb and get the man to safety.
Claims that he was "going to die anyway" are contemptible. Ocean racing crews stop to help fellow sailors in distress and I've never yet heard of a seaman leaving someone in distress with the claim that "they were going to drown anyway"
What we have here is personal ambition and financial considerations being put before humanitarian and ethical considerations.
James; "his own stupidity"? you know that for a fact?
"the guy was too far gone"? you know that for a fact too?
I heard Ingils interviewed. Hias party started out very early. 11pm. Ingils said to be clear of others. Climbed through the night and morning, which is why he suffered frostbite with -50 temperatures. So to have come across the Brit he must have been out overnight, which Rob Hall's wife has just alluded to on TV3. I still want to know, did a party see and pass him by much earlier,the previous day maybe, when there was an (albeit miniscule) chance of helping him.
James; "his own stupidity"? you know that for a fact?
Yep!
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