Dead Lucky (40 page)

My name has become irrevocably linked to that of David Sharp because, ten days apart, both of us were thought to be dead but then shown to be alive. The big difference was that when the sun rose and warmed me, I was given drinks and oxygen by Dan Mazur and his team, and from that point I was able to walk. When the sun rose on David Sharp, it did little more than show just how close to death he was. Efforts to help him were made by several people, and some sat with him in tears, each of them realizing that his death was inevitable. With the difficult terrain, the capabilities of the climbers on the mountain, and the states they themselves were in, rescue was impossible.

The media soon learned that forty people had walked past David Sharp in the earliest hours of May 15, as he lay alive but unmoving on the trail, and that he was dead by May 16. There was an outcry against the heartless ambition of climbers who would tag the top of Everest at any cost, including the price of the life of another. David himself was criticized, from afar, while he was dead or dying, for wanting to tackle the mountain on his own terms, in a simple, unencumbered way.

My own survival led people to think that David Sharp's death could have been avoided, but there were many differences between our two situations. The view of the press was simplistic: I was rescued, therefore I survived; but David Sharp was not rescued, therefore he died.

In fact, my rescue took place above 28,000 feet, when Lakcha, Dorje, Dawa Tenzing, and Pemba brought me down from near the summit to Mushroom Rock. These men gave me the opportunity to survive. That opportunity was then extended by Dan, Andrew, Myles, and Jangbu, who stopped to help me and gave up their summit chances. The subsequent “rescue” by the two Sherpas was beyond the control of Dan and his team, and proved to be more dangerous than no rescue at all.

As anyone who has floundered in deep water would agree, when you yourself are close to drowning, it's near impossible to save someone so exhausted and full of water that they can no longer float. In the case of David Sharp, there was no mountaineering equivalent of a surf lifesaving team. The most popular alpine climbing destinations in the world have trained rescue squads, but in the high Himalaya—the world's most dangerous mountains—there is none.

David's death was certainly a tragedy. Years ago I spent hours next to an injured climber, waiting for a chopper to arrive and airlift him from the base of the cliff. The man was in a coma, and I was unable to do anything for him; nor could the climbers with me. At least we were living presences by his side. Had I been able to sit for that same number of hours with David Sharp high on Everest, I might well have died myself—that is how marginal life is up there. Above 27,000 feet you can easily die when doing nothing, which is why some call it the death zone.

There was what I would call immoral, sensationalist reporting about the death of David Sharp, and scapegoats were found and lynched in newsprint and newsreel. Even my own situation, with its happy ending, was manipulated for dramatic effect to make better television. One of the problems was that the mainstream media took most of their information from a few Web reports from climbers at Base Camp who had little concern about the accuracy of their words. What they said was treated as fact and interpreted by the press as it wished. This hype meant that the press expected my story to showcase conflict between me and Alex, and me and the Sherpas who could not revive me. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In Kathmandu an Australian television crew interviewed me and Barbara for a segment to be broadcast on the Channel 7 show
Today Tonight.
At the time of the interview, I had thought that everything had gone well, with the drama of my exploits requiring no embellishment.

One of the questions
Today Tonight
had asked was: “Did you know that Alex told the Sherpas to leave you for dead?”

“Yes,” I had replied, without any indication of distress or disapproval.

However, the editor or segment producer had spliced in a different answer, one that I had given to a completely different question, presumably because they wanted some extra drama.

The first I knew of this was back in Australia, when Barbara, Dylan, Dorje, and I were watching a videotape of what had gone to air. There was footage of climbers in the mess tent at Base Camp listening to a radio conversation between Alex and the Sherpas.

It began with Alex saying, “But now Lincoln is very bad. If possible, send one Sherpa up to help Lincoln. He is near dead also.”

Next came voiceover from the interviewer, with footage of Alex at his telescope peering at the mountain.

“This, we are reliably informed, is the voice of expedition leader Alex Abramov from Everest Base Camp, instructing the Sherpas to leave Lincoln and return.”

I was now on camera being interviewed with a surprised expression. Hesitantly, I said, “Okay . . . That is news to me. . . .”

Again there was voiceover from the interviewer: “This is the first time Lincoln has been made aware of Abramov's orders.”

But I knew from Alex that I had been declared dead. My comment had concerned another issue altogether, and I immediately told my family as much. The question to which I had actually responded, with obvious surprise, had been: “Did you know that Alex told the Sherpas to cover you with stones?” This was a totally different issue, and I had been stunned to learn that my death had been so definitive that a burial of sorts had been arranged.

“You know the man well,” said the interviewer. “You must be pretty disappointed in hearing him say that. You're sitting here alive and well, admittedly with a bit of frostbite.”

“Look . . .” I began.

But the interviewer threw words at me.

“Shocked? Angered? Offended?”

“I guess I'm a little bewildered,” I said, meaning that I was bewildered to learn that a pile of stones was to have been my grave. “I need to talk to Alex about that.”

“I would think so!” pronounced the interviewer, and the audience would have thought that I was bewildered because I had been left for dead.

At the time of the interview, Alex had not yet told me about the burial plan, which in the end had turned out not to be feasible or indeed necessary.

Obviously, the truth was not being allowed to interfere with a good story. They already had the good story, so I assumed that they had wanted to convey a sense of conflict between Alex and me or that he had attempted to keep the truth from me—neither of which had any basis in fact.

Alex had done everything he could to save me. Fifteen 7Summits-Club Sherpas had been on the mountain to strip the camps of tents and other equipment, but Alex had redirected most of these men to help with my rescue. As it turned out, this number of Sherpas was unnecessary because I had been able to walk down the mountain.

With the mainstream media deliberately creating misinformation, it was not surprising that amateur Web reports from the mountain and elsewhere were riddled with inaccuracies and (hopefully) unintended slander.

BUT THE MEDIA IS a double-edged sword. Good stories were also published, by journalists who had done their research and analyzed points of view before presenting their version to the world. Invariably, these were stories that were overviews of what took place on Everest in April and May 2006. What happened to me was certainly one of the stand-out events of the season, but because I could not give many interviews, the articles usually included only summaries. The journalists who wanted more detailed information resorted to the initial garbled reports of my misadventure.

The part of my story that could be told without any input from me was that I had been declared dead high on the mountain, that I had been left out in that state overnight, and that I had been discovered alive in a weakened but remarkably lucid state. No one who had been left for dead at that height had survived. These were a unique set of circumstances, which added a feel-good factor at the end of an Everest season that had first caught the eye of the press because of controversy and tragedy. I was happy to provide that feel-good element.

My apparent death and survival led to headlines not only in my home country of Australia, where a media flurry might be expected, but also around the world. The headlines included words and phrases such as “Miracle Man,” “Lazarus,” and “Dead Man Walking.” There were plenty of photographs of me taken by the few climbers still around when I descended from the mountain, as well as those taken by Dan, Myles, and Andrew. The media in the United States was very keen on the story, partly because Dan was an American who could tell the story firsthand. He found himself regarded as a hero, and I was certainly prepared to support that view. As a Canadian, Andrew Brash received similar treatment in his hometown of Calgary. Myles Osborne was British but was studying at Harvard and spent much of the rest of 2006 researching his dissertation in Africa. The beams of the limelight did not highlight his contribution as effectively.

Meanwhile, I was consciously avoiding the attention. Simon Balderstone handled all media inquiries for me because I simply did not have the energy to face the press.

However, one opportunity arose that was impossible to refuse. An NBC crew had filmed us in Kathmandu and invited us to appear with Dan Mazur in New York on the
Today
show and
Dateline,
both hosted by Matt Lauer. Dylan and Dorje were invited as well and were excited until they realized that it really was a “flying visit,” with almost as much time in the air as on the ground. When they did the math, they decided their social engagements for the upcoming weekend seemed more appealing. Barbara came, of course, as part of the story and to look after me, while Simon looked after everything else.

The long flights that took us from Sydney to New York were the ideal way to relax. There was absolutely nothing else I wanted or needed to do but lie back and let my healing continue. When we landed at Los Angeles, my wheelchair and bandaged hands brought us special treatment, which allowed us to sidestep the huge line and be the first on board the flight to New York.

A black stretch limo waited for us outside JFK Airport. I hobbled toward this well-polished symbol of opulence and chuckled when I realized the vehicle was a Lincoln. I was also laughing at the absurdity of the whole experience and at the distance I had traveled—not the physical distance of our travels but the inconceivable divide between the world's greatest mountain and its greatest city.

Our first interview, for the
Today
show, required an early start. Matt Lauer was very easy to talk to, and our time on air was over before we knew it. The segment was received very well, according to Simon, Barbara, and Dan's partner, Liz, all of whom had been in the audience. Back at the hotel on Central Park South, we relaxed by sitting down to breakfast next to the windows. It was good to get to know Dan in more relaxed circumstances. We shared a similar deadpan sense of humor, with ridiculous comments building upon each other until we broke up laughing. Barbara and Liz were instantly on the same wavelength. Initially they collated the advantages and pitfalls of men who were mountaineers, but they quickly moved beyond that subject.

We were surrounded by New York, of course. One day we set out across Central Park to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was a crowded and colorful journey because it was the annual Puerto Rican Day Parade, when a million Puerto Ricans march through Manhattan. Barbara and Simon took turns pushing me in my wheelchair, with the detours set up because of the parade doubling the distance we had to travel. As fate would have it, a Hatshepsut exhibition was showing at the Met. This was a delight for Barbara, who has a master's degree in Egyptology. Hatshepsut had been one of the few women to rule as pharaoh, and her wealth and importance was obvious from the ancient artifacts on display.

Many of the exhibits were made of gold, and that reminded me of Tibet, where golden statues of Buddha and associated deities were once a feature of the monasteries. Both Egypt and Tibet had been plundered of their riches, Tibet only in the past sixty years. At least Tibet still has its mountains.

It was midday in New York, which meant the whole of Tibet would now be covered in darkness. Less than three weeks ago I had sat at Mushroom Rock in that same darkness, with snow swirling around me. I had faced the horror of death, alone and at the cruising altitude of a jumbo jet. Soon I would be at that height again but with Barbara and Simon, on a United Airlines flight.

I continued to marvel at the wealth and beauty of the three-thousand-year-old treasures. The mass and demeanor of the museum itself spoke of the wealth of modern America, with New York as its showpiece.

In one cabinet that displayed ancient body decorations, I spotted some finger and toe coverings, lying at the front of the display as if they had been laid out ready to wear. They were made entirely of gold and shaped like replica fingers and toes, complete with golden nails. There were two full sets. I called Barbara over.

“Look at these,” I said. “They're exactly what I need.”

My fingertips were dead, black, and mummified—not that different from the fingertips of pharaohs who had been prepared for the afterlife. I had almost passed through to an afterlife without the help of gold, so it was difficult for me to argue for it now. And besides, among the replica Egyptian ornaments and gold jewelery for sale in the museum shop, there were no golden fingers.

EPILOGUE

T
HE LAST SATURDAY of February 2006 was the day I had begun my training for Everest in earnest. My legs had been fit for running but not for going up and down steep slopes—which is the entire process of mountaineering. I had developed a strategy for treating my knees gently until they built up strength. It began with a loaded pack and a ten-minute jog from our house. I followed the wide trail through wind-pruned heath on the edge of the sandstone plateau, until a short downhill slope brought me to where Jamison Creek plunged over Wentworth Falls. The 700-foot drop was interrupted halfway down by a broad rocky shelf. There are pools here big enough to swim in, but the largest pool is at the base of the lower falls, edged by rainforest. I climbed down the steep ladders and steps to the base of the lower falls, where I filled the plastic bottles with two gallons of water from the pool. Ascent is much gentler on the knees than is descent, which was why I wanted the extra twenty pounds of weight only for the climb back up. At the top of the falls, I poured the water into the creek, then headed down to repeat the cycle.