Read Surviving the Extremes: A Doctor's Journey to the Limits of Human Endurance Online
Authors: Kenneth Kamler
Surviving the Extremes: A Doctor's Journey to the Limits of Human Endurance (48 page)
The rewards of exploration are derived not just from where you go but in large measure from whom you go with. I have had the rare good fortune to endure harsh environments with some of the finest people on earth, and have been strengthened by their example. Expeditions are agglomerations of people from disparate backgrounds, and I am proud of the eclectic group of friends I have accumulated over the years.
In the jungle, I met Antonio, for whom survival was a daily event. I was brought to him by Sebastian, my native Ecuadoran guide, who bridged two worlds and so could help me better understand the people who were around us. The expedition was led by Bill Jahoda, Professor of Biology at Eastern Connecticut State University, and his son, John Jahoda, Professor of Biological Sciences at Bridgewater State College, Massachusetts. I am indebted to them, and to all the other zoologists and botanists who patiently explained their research to me and
made sure that I wasn’t just looking at the jungle, that I was actually seeing it.
I owe my French connection with the undersea world to my good friend Louis Potié, a hydrologist and former Deputy Mayor of Marseille, who introduced me to the pioneers of the deep. Of the hundreds of dives I have made, those that helped the most in the preparation of this book were done in the Mediterranean Sea, with the cooperation of Comex and its founder and chairman, Henri Delauze. Comex’s Chief Medical Officer, Bernard Gardette, is an extreme medicine researcher who brought me, academically, to the edge of the ocean frontier. I am especially grateful to Pierre Becker, President of NympheaWater, for making me part of his dive team exploring the resources of the seafloor. And a thank-you goes to marine architect Jacques Rougerie for his invitation, which I have accepted, to be part of the
SeaOrbiter
crew when it starts its around-the-world drift.
From the depths to the heights. My first climbing instructor, ex–Green Beret Rob Blathewick, saw fit to include an inexperienced doctor on what became my first expedition. Since then I have climbed all over the world and tested the limits of extreme medicine on six expeditions to Mount Everest. The first four were led by Todd Burleson of Alpine Ascents International, with Pete Athans as the climbing leader. They were sponsored in part by the National Geographic Society, under the direction of Brad Washburn, their former Chief Cartographer and President Emeritus of the Boston Museum of Science. I have worked closely with Brad for many years. He is a former world-class mountain climber and has come to represent for me and for many others the ultimate example of an explorer-scientist.
My latest two expeditions to Everest were undertaken at the request of the NASA Commercial Space Center under the direction of Dr. Ron Merrill at Yale University. The expeditions were led by Scott Hamilton, a director of the Explorers Club, and were specifically designed to test space-age equipment and communications at the limits of human survival. Via satellite, we were supported at Yale by Dr. Richard Satava, also a member of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and by Dr. Peter Angood. On Everest, where I was
the chief high-altitude physician, I worked with chief medical researchers Dr. Vincent Grasso, a fellow at Yale, and Dr. Chris Macedonia, a U.S. Army major on loan from the Defense Department. The engineering work was carried out by Mike Hawley and his group of techno-wizards from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab.
Everest is a difficult and dangerous place to work. A large support team of American and Sherpa climbers successfully managed to expedite our research and keep us safe at the same time. I must especially recognize the conscientious and sometimes heroic efforts of Wally Berg and Jim Williams, two elite mountain guides who are able to maintain strength and clarity of thought even at the most extreme altitudes. Most especially, however, I want to thank my Sherpa climbing friend Nima Tashi, who with quiet loyalty and devoted support has looked after me for many years on the mountain.
To write a book on survival you have to leave extreme environments safely. Not everyone does. I wish to pay tribute to some friends who lost their lives in the course of their expeditions. New Zealand Everest climbers Gary Ball, who succumbed to pulmonary edema on Dhalighiri, and Rob Hall, who became hypothermic on Everest; American Muggs Stump with whom I climbed in Antarctica, who fell into a crevasse on Mount McKinley; my British pilot in Antarctica, Giles Kershaw, who crashed on the ice when his plane was caught in a downdraft; and Argentinian Explorers Club member Adrian Hutton, who crashed while flying low over a mountainous site in the Andes where he was reconnoitering his next exploration.
I have been lucky enough to come back from every expedition I have been on, lucky to have loyal friends eager to see me, and luckier still to have a devoted family waiting for me when I come home: my mother, Ethel; my brother, Jerry, and my sister-in-law, Marilyn; my two children, Jonathan and Jennifer; and my father, Willie, watching over us all. They are with me on every adventure, and they have sustained me through difficult times away and at home. They have endured my absences for weeks or months at a time as well as the countless hours I have spent writing. Those were hours my children and I shared in our study, I on the couch writing, they at their desks
doing homework—the three of us exchanging ideas, opinions, advice, and laughter. The memory of those days together I will keep as a timeless treasure. I hope that we will always share all our adventures and take pride in each other’s accomplishments. My family, and my many friends, give me the strength I need to explore extreme environments, and, especially, they give me that most valuable key to survival—the motivation to get back.
abdomen,
150
acceleration (G),
242–46
acetone,
112
acupressure,
93
acute mountain sickness,
191–92
adaptation
to heat,
149–51
to high altitude,
210–13
adrenaline,
140
African peoples,
150–51
African plains, temperature of,
128
aggression,
216
airline attendants, radiation exposure of,
262
air pressure
low, in mountains,
183–84
,
192–93
and lung action,
205
alcohol (medicinal),
50
Algeria,
138
alkalinity,
194
alkaloids,
69
altitude.
See
high altitude
complexity of life in,
83
amino acids,
104
ampiwaska vine,
67–68
anaconda,
53–54
anaerobic respiration,
211–12
anatomy, study of,
114
Anderson, Clay,
238–41
animals
brain of,
71
anopheles mosquito,
35–36
antelope,
140
antibody response,
47
anti-G suit,
244
antivenin,
47
Antonio (Amazon Indian),
19–24
,
28–29
,
36
,
80
,
275
ants,
57
navigation of,
146
anxiety,
131
Aquarius undersea habitat,
237–41
Arctic explorers,
203
armpits,
225
army ants,
57
arterioles,
129
astronauts and cosmonauts,
245–46
,
249
,
251
training of,
237–41
Atlantic Ocean,
125
Atlas Mountains,
125
atmosphere
composition of,
192
protection from radiation by,
261
See also
air pressure
Australian Aborigines,
202
Australian Outback,
149
autonomic nervous system,
287
auto-recovery system,
245–46
axon,
289
ayahuasca vine,
69–70
Ayamara Indians,
212–13
bacteria, heat-tolerant,
142
Bailey, Maurice and Marilyn,
101
,
102
,
105
,
118
,
119
,
120
,
122
,
279–80
Baker, Norman,
109–11
balance, loss of,
217
barnacles,
96
basic training, military,
141
bat,
136
beauty, sense of,
97
bedsores,
100
beetles,
144
bends, the,
14
,
171–75
,
238
,
252–53
Bernabe, Pascal,
166
Berullio (Amazon Indian),
18–19
,
28–29
,
52
bicarbonate,
194
biofeedback,
287
bioluminescence,
180
black caiman,
20–21
blisters,
49
blood
circulation of,
87
,
132
,
141–42
,
225
as cooling mechanism,
129–30
,
150
decreased volume of,
266
flow, cut off by tourniquet,
30
fuel transport in,
112
nitrogen in,
13–14
oxygen in,
193–94
pressure drop,
230
red blood cells in,
163
,
195
,
211–12
,
218–19
,
266
salt concentration of,
108
,
109
,
131
,
132
,
145
blood vessels,
45
,
87
,
199
,
214–15
,
230
dilation of,
216–18
blubber,
163–64
blushing,
287
Bombard, Alain,
111
bone marrow,
195
bones,
32
borderline environments,
4–5
,
13
botfly,
276
Boukreev, Anatoli,
224
,
226–27
,
275
brachial artery,
225
brain
animal,
71
bleeding in,
3
blood supply to,
193
cooling of, in desert mammals,
140
human, as survival asset,
146–47
,
148
,
151
,
204
,
281
mapping the, with MR I and PET,
282
metabolic rate of,
200
need for stimulation,
110–11
,
264
overheating of,
135
structures of, higher and lower,
70–72
,
118–19
,
281–84
trauma to,
3–4
brain stem,
281
Breashears, Dave,
228
of thin air,
184
breathing device, positive-pressure,
245
buoyancy-compensation vest,
180
Burleson, Todd,
200–201
,
222–25
,
228
bus, overturned on a mountain road,
8–9
bushmaster,
47–48
caffeine,
191
caisson’s disease,
171
