This year has brought to light the large number of deaths on Mount Everest and the massive overcrowding taking place there. One would think that the danger involved in this climb would result in people who find themselves together on the peak being solicitous of one another and helping those in distress. Instead it seems to have bred a kind of callousness as people become so determined to get to the top that nothing, even the sight of others in obvious distress, will deter them. This article describes what the crowding has done to people.
Chatur Tamang was on his way to the roof of the world when he hit a traffic jam.
Ahead of him, on the final ascent to Mount Everest, he saw more than 100 people bunched together on the narrow ridge that leads to the summit — a place so high that it is known as the “death zone,” where the human body has trouble functioning.
Some of those descending from the summit pleaded desperately with those ascending to clear a way for them to pass since they had run out of oxygen. “That sent chills down my spine,” said Tamang, 45, a mountaineering guide who lives in Russia. He fears that if no action is taken, the crowds next year could be worse, with potentially fatal consequences.
…Because of the crowds, some climbers took longer than normal to make their way up the mountain. One of them was Nihal Bhagwan, a 27-year old Indian man who died of dehydration, exhaustion and high-altitude sickness, said Keshav Paudel of Peak Promotions, the expedition company guiding Bhagwan’s trip.
Bhagwan spent two days each at two intermediary points on the climb, said Paudel, though he should have spent only one at each place. Already weak when he climbed to the summit, Bhagwan became totally depleted while descending, said Paudel, who attributed his death both to the traffic and extreme exhaustion. Others who died this year included two other Indians, two Britons, two Irish citizens and one American.
One person who made it to the summit describes the callous behavior he saw that disillusioned him.
Former U.S. Navy corpsman C. Michael Fairman has climbed the highest spot in five continents and 41 states for the sake of his own mental health and to raise awareness about veteran suicide.
First in 2014 and again in 2016, Fairman climbed Mount Everest, where 11 people have died this climbing season.
”Somebody keeled over, and people would just walk over them and keep moving with not much interest in taking care of people,” Fairman, 54, of Columbus’ Clintonville neighborhood, said of his first trip to Everest.
That lack of humanity mixed with inexperienced climbers and ambitions to reach the world’s highest point were key contributors to what has become the fourth-deadliest climbing season in Everest’s history, Fairman said.
This illustrates how once people strongly set their minds on a goal, other considerations that are seen as standing in its attainment can disappear from their minds, even those that one would consider basic humanity. It may be that the oxygen deprivation plays a role in affecting their thinking, damaging their judgment and undermining their sense of empathy.
For many of those, stopping to help someone in distress could well be enough to put themselves in the same boat. Then you have 2 dead people instead of one.
There may well be increased callousness, decreased empathy. There is also, likely, necessity.
ardipithecus @1:
And they just don’t want to lose their place in line, right? I mean, fuck everybody else. I paid $11,000 to be in this queue.
.
.
When I saw the pictures of the line, I wondered how people got down if there was only one path/route. That is insane. It is no wonder that people are dying.
“That lack of humanity mixed with inexperienced climbers”
I would describe myself as a VERY inexperienced climber. (I hike, but only well established trails in the Alps with people who know hiking far better than me.) Even so, I know the first rule of hiking: “Never go alone, so that if something bad happens, the other person can go back down and get help.”
The idea that 100 ‘other persons’ are there who don’t do ANYTHING to help someone in need seems inexplicable to me.
Just blame it on inhumanity, not inexperience!
I think ardipithecus is on the right track. And along with the conditions affecting judgement, I think the crowds do as well. When in groups, even under the best of circumstances people often tend to not react properly to emergencies, depending on what others are doing. No one else is helping, it must not be that bad, and I need to husband my own oxygen supplies. Why risk my life if no one else thinks it’s necessary? So no one does anything.
Summiting Everest was cool when it hadn’t been done. But now it’s just a checkbox for accomplishment egotists. A had a friend a few years ago who kept dropping the fact that she had summited Kilimanjaro. I finally said “So?” There are plenty of extreme adventures, starting with trying to survive working an Amazon.com warehouse, I’m impressed by someone who can do that.
I’m sure I read somewhere once that mountaineers are taught to be callous as part of their training, the attitude being that it’s better for one person to die than two; and that this is especially the case when climbing high peaks like Everest where you’re in the “death zone” and stopping to help someone might end up killing you both.
Which is not to say that the kind of people who have “climb Mount Everest” on their bucket list aren’t the sort who’d walk over your prone body in the street than take the time to go around…
ridana @ 4: This is apparently a well-known phenomenon in sociology called, appropriately enough, the bystander effect.
I’m with ardipithecus, I think. The pictures and stories of people walking past others in distress can be misleading. This is not a hike. Even for people in what we might call “good shape”, they are in an environment which has no mercy, and anywhere near the summit they are in a permanent state of exhaustion. It might help to ponder what “stopping to help” actually means in these circumstances. Offer them your oxygen? Physically support/pull/carry them when you yourself are near exhaustion?
And I suspect a lot of these people are absurdly unprepared. There was a Canadian women who died on Everest a few years ago. Her “preparation” was some light jogging in Toronto. That’s just mind-bogglingly stupid. And it’s criminally irresponsible to offer people like her “guided” climbs, and to allow so many people to go at once. Why haven’t these outfits been sued out of business?
Yes, there are lots of examples of the bystander effect, and worse: people just being callous arseholes. But I don’t think this a good example of those phenomena.
The first principle of first aid is: ensure it is safe for you to administer first aid. If it’s not… don’t. Because if you do, and succumb to whatever caused the first casualty, you have made the situation worse, not better.
And in the death zone, it’s not safe to stop and help. Ever. Everyone who climbs that high signs up to that risk. Nobody does not know the deal.
Watch the movie Everest. Dead frozen bodies are land marks. It’s so difficult they can’t even remove very many bodies in the death zone. People have died trying. Helping someone could cause death for the helper for sure. It costs probably over $80,000 for an attempt. The problem is the Nepalese government giving out too many permits. They are responsible for the deaths.
Yeah, well. I can’t get too aggrieved about people who pay $$$ to book the flight and the tour and the gear and to duly queue up but can’t manage to survive.
It’s all part of the experience, right? Nobody dragged them there in chains.
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Myra:
<snicker>
The dead themselves don’t bear the responsibility, because, dammit, they paid their money and thus should have been safe? Or something, I dunno how people like you think, where people apparently bear no personal responsibility for their own actions.
Hm. Maybe build a funicular? 🙂
John @11: Yeah, caveat emptor, baby! Snickering arsehole.
Rob:
This, from the person who wrote “And I suspect a lot of these people are absurdly unprepared.”
(No assignation of personal responsibility, there. Nosiree!)
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So very rude, I am!
John @14: Yes, I can point out the stupidity of people without feeling it necessary to insert a snicker. There but for the grace of dog, etc.
Rude? No, just nauseatingly callous.
Rob:
So, you concur that blaming the Nepalese government for issuing too many permits is a stupidity, but the snicker put you off.
(Marked-up onomatopoeia is not your thing, I get it; but hey, I don’t use emoticons much)
Callous to consider that people who pointlessly put themselves into danger bear responsibility for dangerous outcomes occurring?
I grant that’s a perspective, but obviously it’s not mine. I’m more of a realist and a pragmatist.
But I accept that you don’t find me rude. Ta.
No, I don’t concur. And I’m not in the mood for playing your stupid disingenuous little word games tonight.
Yeah, I know. I’m a snickering arsehole who plays word-games, and thus you can evade the issue.
No worries, Rob.
John, you are a pretty big wanker.
How so, Holms? I’m not stroking you, nor are you mine.
John @16: Ah, morning has broken, and your obtuseness is once again bearable.
You seem unable to grasp a fairly simple point. Yes, some people are grossly underprepared for this venture, and for that they bear some responsibility. But the government which issues permits knowing that fatal delays will almost certainly occur*, and the outfits that take their money, should be legally culpable.
And yes, you are a wanker.
*The effects of altitude are unpredictable. Even superbly trained athletes have been known to succumb to altitude sickness. Delays can kill anyone up there.
@sonofrjblake:
I remember getting that in First Aid training, too.
@Cat Mara:
One of the other things I got in First Aid training is how to work around the bystander effect. Don’t just say ‘somebody call 911’, point at one person and say ‘YOU call 911’.
@Rob Grigjanis:
True, there’s blame enough to go around here. Saying the tour companies shouldn’t be selling as many tickets doesn’t mean the idiots who go up with no training or preparation are off the hook.
Rob @21:
Much as the [Department of Motor Vehicles] should be legally culpable for traffic accidents by dint of offering drivers’ licences and taking their money. Clearly.
And you are the sort of person who directly calls another “a wanker”.
(Thanks for making me feel virtuous in comparison to what might have been)
#20
Are you trying to pretend that the word wanker only has a single meaning?
Holms, such a pleasure when you comment about your favourite topic: me.
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Got anything to write about the actual post topic? About self-responsibility, which such as Rob deprecate?
(Heh)
#25
I made clear to you in our last conversation that my preference was to jump on stupid comments; if you have noticed that this means your comments more often than not lately, I can only agree.
And should I interpret your silence on the matter of your feigned (or real?) ignorance of polysemy as assent to my question?
Oh and
is pretty pathetic. But who am I to stand in your way if you are proud of this achievement? Congratulations on being …too virtuous… to use mildly naughty words.
Nobody has yet commented on the fact that this sentence:
“Instead it seems to have bred a kind of callousness as people become so determined to get to the top that nothing, even the sight of others in obvious distress, will deter them.”
seems to pretty much describe many people’s current experience in America today.
The situation on Everest can be looked at as a metaphor for the social and political climate today.
John @23:
From someone who habitually affects an air of condescension, this is a jarringly stupid comparison. Nepal is knowingly making a dangerous (at the best of times) undertaking far more dangerous. If you think they bear no responsibility for that, just say so.
I calls ’em as I sees ’em.
Holms:
Well, it’s your hobby. Doesn’t derail threads or anything, does it?
(I comment elseblog here on FtB, maybe you can alternate blogs so the ensuing derailings are evenly spread)
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Rob:
Me too, except that my call was indisputably correct and verifiable.
Well, it could be an affect, so that it takes effort for me to keep up.
But it isn’t, it’s me.
Oh, right, a jarringly stupid comparison. OK.
How so?
John @29:
OK, now we’re fully in the Morales “Ah’m Sure I Don’t Know What You Mean” Weeds. I told you how so. And I’m done playing. À la prochaine.
Very evasive, Rob.
But sure, go with the overabundance of “death permits” as being the real problem in Everest deaths.
Kinda makes sense in a crude way, I grant. Less permits, less deaths. No permits, no deaths.
Hard to argue with that.
(Course, that applies to licensed road traffic, too)
[Less permits, less deaths.] → [Fewer permits, fewer deaths.]
That was sloppy of me — deaths are countable.
Correct. Pointing out derailments is not itself the cause of derailment.
If I wanted to do that, I would already be doing it. Again, you are not my hobby.
I notice you left unanswered the point regarding your selective ignorance of the polysemy of ‘wanker’ again.
You have (deliberately?) omitted a vital part of the comparison. Rob stated: “Nepal is knowingly making a dangerous (at the best of times) undertaking far more dangerous”. Is driving along a road “a dangerous (at the best of times) undertaking”? Is it at all similar to climbing Mount Everest?
No.
Reminder: my ‘hobby’ is not digging into your comments, it’s digging in to stupid comments. However, the Venn diagram of those two is rapidly becoming a single circle. Comparing car driving to climbing Mount Everest is sillier than anything even StevoR ever came up with.
Holms:
So you hold that comparing blaming the permit issuing entity for the actions of those who attain the permits with blaming the permit issuing entity for the actions of those who attain the permits is sillier than what someone else ever came up with when the permits are for different activities. You quite sure of this?
Were it but self-reflexive.
(Heh)
PS
There is no ignorance, selective or otherwise, unless it is yours of the polysemes of ‘dick’.
Stopped the quote there because your error is already apparent. No, the permit issuing entity is not being blamed for the actions of those that have attained (==> obtained) said permits. They are being blamed for their own action: issuing far too many permits. A fundamental misunderstanding on your part.
It’s interesting that you enjoin me to self-reflect on my comments, while not doing so for your own.
In comment #20, you deliberately interpreted ‘wanker’ in a very particular way, setting aside other meanings of the word to settle on an interpretation that was contextually nonsensical. As you well know.
Holms, I should know better, but you are chewy.
Much like the road toll can be blamed on far too many drivers’ licenses being issued, yes.
Thus the comparison.
Frankly, I saw it as a rather quaint greeting, ostensibly insulting but mostly phatic. A prelude to one of your spasms of obsession with me and my ways — the way of the wanker, let us say.
Can’t say you’ve written anything that would disabuse me of the notion that my contextualisation was tritely correct.
No, because traffic jams on roads lead to people being late for work, while traffic jams on Everests leads to people dying. Remember, we aren’t talking about the mere presence of people on Everests -- which would be directly analogous to the presence of drivers on roads -- we’re talking specifically about congestion-level traffic on Everests.
Which is why your comparison is deeply asinine.
Did you genuinely interpret “John, you are a pretty big wanker.” as an affable greeting? Recall that context is a context that exists. If you really did, then I must say that your comprehension of context is not very good.
…Oh. Well, your comprehension of context is not very good. This explains so much! I thought your non-comprehension of context and polysemy was intentional trolling -- in keeping with your own description of yourself -- but it turns out it is the non-comprehension of the dullard variety.
…I see you still have no rebuttal to the point regarding your (wilful? genuine?) misunderstanding of the multiple meanings of ‘wanker’.
Ahoy Holms! Hey ho!
Yes, because fewer licenses would lead to fewer fatalities, and no licenses would lead to no fatalities. Actuarial reality. Same thing.
But I like the way you introduce ancillary considerations. I mean, I could, too — something like the necessity to earn a living as contrasted to the necessity of, ahem, “conquering Everest”.
(Actually, I kinda did)
Says someone who imagined I was mandating introspection when I used the term ‘self-reflexive’. You are most amusing.
You think it merits rebuttal? Heh.
(You and your perceptions!)
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Anyway, enough enabling from me to you in this session.
We have once again imposed on our host far more than is proper, and clearly it’s up to me to set some limits.
Brain fart! That should read “Recall that context is a thing that exists.
In which you ignore the point regarding traffic jams being a magnifier of risk on mountains, but the reverse on roads. You also ignored the correction regarding Nepal not being blamed for the actions of the mountaineers, but for their own actions. And still no substantive response to the point regarding your non-comprehension of the ‘wanker’ comment.
Says someone who has pointed to your multiple non-comprehensions of contextually obvious sentence meanings. My only mistake was to presume that they were intentional, but I take your correction supplied in #37 -- they were genuine.
And also yours; recall that you tried to make hay of me skipping points of yours.
Pretty rich, considering this began with your disingenuous nitpicking.
In the news: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-48464030
Pullquote:
…And? I suppose this is a convenient out from defending your silliness.