SYDNEY, May 27: A veteran Australian mountaineer left for dead after collapsing on his descent from the summit of Mount Everest, has been found alive and brought back to base camp in ‘reasonably good’ condition, a colleague said on Saturday.
Lincoln Hall, 50, had been presumed dead after reaching the 8,848-metre summit of Everest on Thursday, but then succumbing to acute high altitude sickness as he began his descent, according to accounts relayed from his expedition team.
Two sherpas trying to help Mr Hall were forced to leave him behind when they ran out of oxygen and expedition leader Alexander Abramov issued a statement over the Internet on Friday that the Australian had died.
But Duncan Chessell, another Australian climber who organises mountaineering expeditions, said Mr Hall was found alive several hours later by an American climber and in a rescue operation involving 10 sherpas and a Russian doctor, the Australian was brought to safety.
Mr Chessell told the Australian national news agency that one of his guides on Everest informed him Mr Hall had spent the night in a heated tent at North Col camp, at 7,000 metres, and walked on Saturday morning into the advanced base camp, which is at 6,400 metres.
“He’s in reasonably good condition but he doesn’t have much memory of things at this stage,” Mr Chessell said.
“Basically he’s been able to come down under his own steam, without assistance,” he said.
“I imagine he got up in the morning after being treated with oxygen and hydration and left (North Col).”
Mr Abramov said earlier on an Everest news website that Mr Hall was suffering ‘acute psychosis, a disorientation in space’ and had been resisting efforts to help him.
He was diagnosed as suffering from acute edema of brain, a frequently fatal swelling of the brain that occurs at extremely high altitudes. Mr Hall, who lost several toes to frostbite on an earlier climb, was also said to be again suffering from frostbite.
Mr Hall is one of Australia’s most well-known mountaineers and adventure authors. He was a member of the first Australian team to climb Mount Everest in 1984, but that bid stopped short of the summit.
He also served as a director of the Australian Himalayan Foundation and was the author of several books, including ‘First Ascent’ and ‘The Life of an Explorer’, and numerous magazine articles.
His last assault on Everest was part of an expedition that included 15-year-old Sydney boy Christopher Harris, who was aiming to become the youngest person to climb the mountain.
Harris turned back short of the summit because of respiratory problems.—AFP
