How the unlucky perished on Mt. Everest

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Thousands of people may want to climb Mt. Everest because it’s there, but not all who venture up the mountain make it back down.

A new study published online this month in the British Medical Journal sheds some light on how people perished while climbing the 29,029-ft (8,848-meter) mountain between 1921 and 2006. Information was compiled from published reports of expeditions, the Himalayan Database, a computerized listing of climbing expeditions on registered peaks, and via Internet searches and contact with mountaineers. Researchers looked at circumstances surrounding the death of climbers and sherpas to get a picture of how people lost their lives.

In the years studied, the overall mortality rate for mountaineers above base camp was 1.3%; for climbers, 1.6%, and for sherpas, 1.1%. Among mountaineers who died after reaching 8,000 meters, 56% did so during the descent, 17% after turning back below the summit, and 10% during the ascent. Survivors reached the summit on average faster than non-survivors.

From 1982 to 2006 during the spring climbing season, 82.3% of climber deaths happened while trying to reach the summit. Among the most commonly reported symptoms in non-survivors were profound fatigue, cognitive changes, and ataxia, or lack of voluntary muscle coordination. Signs of pulmonary edema, or fluid in the lungs, were rare. During all descents using standard routes, death rates were six times higher for climbers than for sherpas. That, researchers believe, can be chalked up to the fact that sherpas live at high altitudes most of their lives, and may be better acclimatized and more skilled.

In the study, researchers wrote, ‘Since neurological symptoms are present in many nonsurvivors, critical questions include whether adequate acclimatization is possible at this altitude and, if so, how can it best be achieved.’

-- Jeannine Stein

Photo credit: PBS / Woodfin Camp / Scott Fische