On October 11th, a dark shadow was cast over Cho Oyu Advanced Base Camp as we buried one of the team members from one of the last two remaining expeditions. The 50-year-old Serbian climber, Pavle Milosevic, a member of the Polish Expedition, was a relative stranger to our expedition until 3pm on October 10th.
David Le Pagne was descending from Camp 1 when he noticed a climber sitting hunched on the scree slope in a distressed state and needing assistance. David, exhausted from his own summit attempt, assisted the climber in descending the scree slope and went to get the climber's teammates from ABC to help. David arrived at our cache camp, totally disgusted with the man's ridiculously slow progress, and said that the man was constantly complaining.
Daniel Mazur spent about 25 minutes trying to convince the climber, who was somewhat lucid at the time, to continue down the mountain and not to stop at our team's cache camp. The sick climber was crawling on his hands and knees, and kept saying "please prepare a place for me, I stay here, I very tired, me no power."
Dan had seen this climber on the mountain several times during the last few weeks. Each time, the man had been seen descending slowly with no rucksack, looking very tired, escorted by an older climber. The man had always been wearing the same strange-looking and ill-fitting gray one-piece climbing suit that he was wearing now.
Later it was revealed that this man had arrived mysteriously in Kathmandu, after a few vague phone calls to his team leader. He had arrived with no climbing gear, and all of his equipment had been purchased on the spur of the moment on the second-hand market in Kathmandu.
Dan tried to convince the ill climber's teammates, who themselves looked quite shattered and were descending after a summit bid of their own, to help their exhausted compatriot, but they seemed to be caught in the grip of some type of gelling inaction, fatalism, or lethargy.
Dan saw one of them pull out a radio and begin speaking into it, while they were sitting on a pile of rocks at the bottom of the scree field. Dan asked this gentleman if they had contacted Base Camp, and the answer came: "yes." Dan asked if their other members were in Base, and the answer came "yes." Then Dan asked if the people in Base were aware of the sickness of the other member, and if the people in base were aware that this member was struggling so mightily, and the answer came: "no." It was a bit like pulling teeth, getting the replies to these questions.
Finally, Dan told the crawling climber that he had to get down to Base Camp, that he could not stay here at the cache camp, and that if he stayed there he would die, as there was no food or water or sleeping bag. Everyone seemed to take pause at that and even the victim was especially gutted by that statement. He emitted a loud moan and rolled over on his side and groaned, and then emitted another loud moan, and laid out his arms above his hooded head and sprawled out. Then he cried, like a small broken-hearted boy, sort of whimpering: "I want go back to city. Please take me back to city."
Chris O'Brien and Dan said: "We are going to get you back to the city, but you have to help us, you have to walk, there is no helicopter service here." Then Dan asked the O'Briens to take charge of leading this stranded man back to Base Camp, even with their huge loads.
Dan also shouted to the ill man's team members to get their friend down the mountain right now, that it was late, but there was still enough time, it only being 5:30pm or so, with another three hours of light. Chris O'Brien, a doctor, raised the man's eyeglasses, and Dan and Chris looked into the man's piercing brown eyes, and he looked good to go.
Finally, the man's teammates came around and got up and everyone, working together, was able to raise him to his feet, and the rag-tag mob stumbled down through the rocks. Dan thought they could make it, so he took off up to Camp 1 with Durga and Jangbu, who had been waiting respectfully this entire time.
Ian Hatchett, John Arnold, and Yang were somewhere above in one of the higher camps, and it was the job of Dan, Durga and Jangbu to support the summit party, in case of emergency. They would also work to clean the mountain and remove camps after the above members' summit bid was finished, successfully and safely.
Chris and Mike O'Brien, who were also descending from their successful summit attempt, also assisted the Serbian. They had been descending from Camp 1 and were with him for about two hours before his teammates arrived. David Le Pagne arrived at ABC and notified Jon Otto, David Roberts and myself about the condition of the Serbian climber.
We quickly consulted our team doctor, Rob Allen, who advised us what medications to take up for the stranded climber, even though we didn't completely know the condition he was in. Jon, David and I left ABC with Decadron (reduces swelling in the brain), adrenaline, Infedipine and plenty of water in case the climber was just dehydrated.
Jon was first to reach the climber, who by now had several of his teammates with him, and consulted Doctor Rob over our radio communication system about the patient's condition and what medications to administer. He then gave the Serbian a shot of Decadron and something for dehydration.
When David and I arrived we took a pulse reading and tried to administer a little food and water. One of the Polish expedition members had brought up a sleeping bag and we quickly placed the climber inside to stop him from becoming hypothermic.
All this time we were in constant communication with Doctor Rob in ABC about the next possible step of action to take, even though the doctor himself was sick with a stomach infection. We asked David Le Pagne to bring some bamboo poles and a tarp from ABC, with the assistance of the cooks, to our location just below the scree slope. They arrived in amazing time even though David had been up and down this section of the mountain earlier in the day carrying heavy loads.
The two teams constructed a makeshift stretcher and we proceeded to bring the Serbian down the moraine. Although most of the eight rescuers were tired, we managed to get him quite some distance. Eventually the weight brought us to a stop.
It was decided to administer a shot of adrenaline, which Jon Otto carried out. This momentarily got the patient on his feet, with the assistance of a couple of his teammates, and he was able to walk down the moraine for about 10 minutes before having to return to the stretcher.
The O'Brien brothers came to assist with the stretcher bearing and I was amazed that the brothers even had the strength to get out of their bags after their four-day descent from the summit. Doctor Rob, with the help of the cook, brought up an IV setup, PAC (Portable Altitude Chamber) bag and other medical supplies to the Polish mess tent, which was quickly being transformed into an emergency room.
We finally got the Serbian to the makeshift ER room at 3am, where Doctor Rob diagnosed him with pulmonary edema, put him on oxygen, administered medication and placed him in the PAC bag, in which we lowered his altitude by 1000 meters. Chris O'Brien assisted Doctor Rob while I pumped the PAC bag every five seconds to sustain the right pressure while the others sat patiently waiting for the situation to improve.
After two hours we removed the patient from the bag and we were all delighted with the response he had to the treatment. His pulse was better, oxygen level better, he was responsive to the people around him, even waved (gave the thumbs up sign) and drank some Gatorade. We thought that our endeavors to rescue the Serbian from the mountain were successful and the doctor dismissed us at 6am to return to our own ABC, as he was going to sit in the mess tent with the patient to observe his condition.
We arrived at our ABC at about 6:30am where we crashed into our tents after an exhaustive night's rescue mission. I remember settling into my bag thinking about how we had just saved a complete stranger's life and about the bonding together by a common love of mountaineering. It was a content feeling.
I awoke later than usual that morning and walked into the mess tent to find out that the climber we saved had died at 7:38am of cardiac arrest and our day of rest had now been replaced by a funeral service.
We assisted in the simple funeral service, led by the Polish expedition leader, which was very respectful and was translated into English for our team members. The cook for the Polish team carved a beautiful memorial stone. The other members of our expedition were unaware of the events down below as we had climbers placed at Camp 1 and Camp 2, poised to make their own summit attempts.
Doctor Rob took the man's death especially hard, and everyone on the expedition was extremely grief stricken.
