Would you go for the summit if it meant leaving someone to die?

I’ve been following this debate in the press the last few days, about climbers on Mt Everest leaving a British man to die and continue to press on to the summit rather than trying to help him. Interesting moral dilemna isn’t it?

NZ climber Greg Inglis in particular is being criticised by many for his decision to leave David Sharp, who was seriously in trouble about 300 metres below the top of the mountain, apparently on his way down. Sharp had climbed the mountain alone and died on the way back down, apparently after running out of oxygen. Inglis’ group stopped to help Sharp but left him to die after deciding there was nothing they could do to help him.

“He had no oxygen, he had no proper gloves,” Inglis said. “He was effectively dead … so we carried on. Trouble is, at 8500 metres it’s extremely difficult to keep yourself alive, let alone keep anyone else alive.”

Sir Edmund Hilary, the first man to climb Mt Everest, was especially critical of the decision. He said:

“I think 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.”

Others have said Inglis’ decision was reasonable. Hilary’s son, Peter, said climbers occasionally had to abandon companions to save their own lives:

“It’s tough. It’s not black and white out there — there are a lot of shades of grey.”

Australian climber, Brigitte Muir, agreed it was futile to attempt to help someone close to death.

So where do you stand on this? Its hard to say, never having been in such a life or death situation, but my thoughts were that in certain circumstances its not unreasonable to take the decision Inglis and his group did, that Sharp was going to die anyway so why put ourselves at risk in what was probably going to be a futile effort. The expected thing to do in most circles would have been to try to help, but this was clearly a risk decision that needed to be made in a highly risky environment. Its also clearly a risk vs reward scenario - ie climbing parties have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and years of preparation for what is for most a once in a lifetime shot at reaching the top - do we sacrifice that for someone else who clearly did not prepare properly, and who, by all reports, was too far gone to save?

Of course, this argument taken to more common situations in people’s lives, could equally be applied to such decisions as how much effort and cost do we put into trying to save someone who is critically ill or injured, how long do we search for missing people, etc.

Update (26/05/2006): More on Mt Everest in today’s press. I was going to add something about Lincoln Hall’s death, as reported this afternoon, but by the time I got home he has apparently been found alive and is being rescued.

Another update (26/05/2006): Hope this guy gets frostbite where it hurts most.

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