Personal accomplishment versus moral responsibility
A more controversial case involved English mountaineer David Sharp. It is believed that Sharp had successfully scaled Everest without a support team or bottled oxygen on May 14th, 2006, but had gotten into difficulty during his descent and decided to take shelter in a cave. What makes Sharps story so controversial is that he was passed by around 40 climbers on their way up to and down from the summit, including double amputee Mark Inglis from New Zealand.
Inglis and his team did stop to check on Sharp on their way to the summit. They found him unconscious and reportedly near death so feeling that there was nothing they could do they decided to continue on to the summit. However, on their descent nine hours later, Sharp was still alive. Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to reach the summit of Mount Everest, lambasted Inglis and the others who made no attempt to save Sharp’s life. “If you have someone who is in great need and you are still strong and energetic, then you have a duty, really, to give all you can to get the man down and getting to the summit becomes very secondary.”
Hillary believes that “the whole attitude towards climbing Mount Everest has become rather horrifying. The people just want to get to the top. They don’t give a damn for anybody else who may be in distress and it doesn’t impress me at all that they leave someone lying under a rock to die.” In his defence, Inglis says that his team were the only ones of the 40 climbers to pass Sharp that day to check on him. Inglis also says that he was the least capable to save Sharp as he was a double amputee. Inglis claims to have radioed his expedition manager and that he had told him that there was nothing they could do as Sharp had been without oxygen for too long and was effectively dead.
This, however, is disputed by a University of Otago scientist and mountaineer, Dr Phil Ainslie, who believes that “had Sharp been given oxygen by another climber he could have recovered something like 80 percent of his capacity.” Dr Ainslie added that “getting Sharp down the mountain would still have been difficult, but possible for other climbers breathing bottled oxygen.” Sharp’s body remains in what has become known as “Green Boots Cave” on Mount Everest.
Where did we find this stuff? Here are our sources:
Just for the love of it by Cathy O’Dowd.
Spiegel.de: A Disabled Man Caught between Fame and Disgrace.
New Zealand Herald: Wrong to let climber die, says Sir Edmund.
Mpora: The Gruesome Truth About The Climbers Who Die on Mount Everest.