In the Sunday Times Magazine on 24 September 2006, Peter Gillman told a chilling Mount Everest tragedy that has shone the spotlight on ethics in the mountaineering community.
David Sharp, born in Harpenden, England, a mechanical engineer training to be a teacher, sufferred a very public, slow and painful death at the age of 34 in the Green Boots Cove on his descent after reaching the summit of the world’s highest mountain single-handedly at the estimated time of 2.30pm May 14, 2003. The possible causes of his death include hypothermia and hypoxia (lack of oxygen), and maybe oedema (high-altitude ailment). The entire ordeal possibly started from 8pm May 14 and ended after 12.15pm May 15.
David’s body now lies next to the body of an Indian climber wearing green boots whom died in a storm while descending in 1996. His New Zealand climber friend Jamie McGuinness had to leave his body in the cove when passing by a few days after the tragedy. McGuinness lifted his backpack covering his face but couldn’t risk digging the snow.
Underneath his lean and tall body, David was descibed as a loner but companionable. It was his third Everest attempt and he chose to carry oxygen with him despite subscribing firmly to the belief that it is cheating. He had possibly made the deadly decisions of climbing in excess of 12 hours (from 11.30pm May 13) and not carrying radio with him.
He was first spotted “busy with his rucksack” in the cave and waved to signal that he was fine around 12am May 15 by two Turkish climbers. Later Turkish climbers identified him as motionless and dead. A Beirut climber didn’t see David at all while an Australian climber thought he was the dead Indian. Then the New Zealand guide Mark Woodward made the decision to leave him to die because he was “pretty close to it” around 1am May 15 on his ascent.
Around 7am May 15, one of the Turkish climbers who thought David was dead on their ascent tried to help him but had insufficient resources. Finally, a Lebanese climber Max Chaya made the long overdue radio call to Russell Brice of Himalayan Experience (Himex) at 9.30am May 15. By then, Brice had his hands full of hot plates (climbers in full scale action) and advised Chaya against any rescue attempt. Chaya complied but was much distraught and “cried a lot”. The Australian climber who thought David was the dead Indian heard the exchange on the radio and followed suit. At around 11.45am May 15, a Sherpa, Phurba and a Turkish climber tried to help David down the mountain but had to settled with moving him a few feet into the sun before continuing their descent because David kept collapsing. Around 12.15pm, Mark Woodward passed by David again and later said “it wasn’t very nice seeing David knowing that he was still alive, just, and that he was still ultimately stuffed”. David was confirmed dead by Korean climbers on May 16.
Mark Woodward confirmed later that he would make the same chilling decision because “it is the cold, hard reality of that environment”. Had he made the radio call to Brice stationed at North Col when he first passed David on his ascent, the story might well have been a different one. Brice, regarded as the most respected Everest mountaineer with his professionalism and integrity, holding the record of over a dozen successful rescue missions, believed he could have attempted a rescue.
Irrespective of the ideological mountaineering strands one supports i.e. personal responsibility for one’s own fate vs. group ethic whereby loyalty and mutual assistance are viewed as overriding values; and the claim by Mark Woodward that “because he (David) couldn’t speak for himself, nobody knew who he was with and trying to get that information from anybody else around or lower down the mountain would have been quite time-consuming”; a radio call with descriptions of David would have been a humane thing to do, whatever the outcome; that is my view.
David’s parents met Russell Brice, who broke the tragic news to them, in London in June 2003. They kept some of David’s possessions and donated the rest to local Tibetans. They also thanked Brice for not sacrificing other people’s safety trying to rescue their son.
Brice’s Sherpa team installs safety ropes along the route and charges $100 per climber from other expeditions, such as Asian Trekking whom David was with. Mark Woodward is one of Brice’s guides.
