Aussie climber was minutes away from death on Mt Everest
An Australian man found unconscious one and a half kilometres from the summit of Mt Everest was just minutes away from death as his team frantically tried to save his life.
Gillian Lee, a seasoned climber from Canberra, was making his fourth attempt to reach the peak in the Himalayas last month yet his gruelling effort not only shocked fellow climbers but local Sherpas as well.
He was tackling the ascent without oxygen.
“For [a] sherpa [it's] also very difficult without oxygen, and for clients, it's more difficult,” Sherpa Kalden, one of two who accompanied Mr Lee, told Channel Seven’s Sunday Night.
The facts don’t lie. In the space of just two weeks during the current season, 11 climbers have died in their bids to reach the summit.
Thirty per cent of those who tackle the mountain without oxygen don’t come back down, team leader Arnold Coster revealed to Sunday Night.
Mr Lee was just minutes from becoming part of the statistic himself, thanks in part to his gritted determination and being what he describes a “stubborn bastard”.
But with the efforts of his two Sherpas, they managed to navigate their way down the mountain with Mr Lee’s body in hand.
"Maybe 10, 15 minutes if we stay up more, maybe I think he will not be alive," Kalden said.
When he collapsed just 1.5km from the summit after pushing himself to the limit and forcing his body to “switch off”, Kalden and Tensing, his second Sherpa, worked effortlessly to bring him to safety with his life hanging in the balance.
Kalden and Tensing bundled his body into a sleeping bag and filled it with as many hot water bottles as they could get their hands on before attempting a rescue rarely performed on the mountain.
But hours into the rescue, they found themselves struggling in the deadly conditions.
Remarkably they encounter a group of Chines rope-fixers who gave the men a sleeping mat which they transformed into a makeshift sled.
Once they reached rocky ground they transferred a deteriorating, semi-conscious Mr Lee onto a yak, which took him 22km over six painstaking hours.
An infection had contributed to his demise and was soon at a point where he was coughing up blood.
Near death, he made the final part of the journey to hospital via helicopter where he admits he got it wrong.
"In this instance, let's be honest, I made the wrong call,” he told Sunday Night.
He described his inner desire to complete the mammoth climb being further spurred on by his obsession to finish the ascent without oxygen. Any other way, he regards as cheating.
But despite his brush with death, he is adamant he can complete the climb unaided.
“It’s unfinished business,” he admitted.
Growing problems on the mountain
Congestion has been a growing issue on the mountain, with one striking photo from Mountaineer Nirmal ‘Nims’ Purja showing about 200 climbers queueing to reach the summit.
The ever-growing bucket list challenge for those who can afford it, is taking its toll on the mountain.
The government was forced to implement a mass clean up after tonnes of human excrement and litter has started to pile up.
In their clean up, four more bodies were discovered. It is not known when they died and are yet to be identified.
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