American shelves Everest dream to save Australian’s life Dikshya Thakuri Lincoln Hall being treated for frost bite at Advanced Base Camp after he was rescued from Everest. Kathmandu, June 5: American climber Daniel Mazur, who helped rescue Australian climber, Lincoln Hall, from Mt Everest, says conquering the world’s highest peak or any other peak can never be more important than saving human life. He told The Himalayan Times that humans live only once while one can always come back to scale the summit. Reaching the summit is more important for some “crazy foreigners” than helping those in need, said Mazur. He wondered, “How can one walk past mountaineers requiring immediate rescue and leave them to die? How can the summit be more important to climbers than saving someone’s life?” Mazur, the team leader of the Summit Climb Everest Tibet 2006 team, along with two team members and three climbing Sherpas, were just two-and-a-half hours short of conquering the world’s highest peak when they saw Australian climber Hall on the ridge. The team climbing from the North Col gave up their summit dream to help Hall. At about 7.30 am on May 26, the team found Hall in a state of delirium, sitting on the ridge at a height of about 8,600 m, without a rope on. “He was trying hard to talk and even asked us if we were surprised to see him there although he was shivering and hallucinating,” Mazur said. Hall had nothing with him except his mountaineering outfit and shoes while his oxygen cylinder was empty and food finished. “He had taken off his hat, gloves and unzipped his jacket and we forced him to put them on while mountain guide Jangbu Sherpa anchored him to a rope,” he said. Jangbu said, “He could have fallen off the ridge anytime and died if we hadn’t reached there on time.” Hall, suffering from high altitude sickness, was hit hard by delirium while descending from the summit but he was unable to recall the incident. His team had left him on the mountain considering him to be dead and even reported his death to his wife prior to his rescue. However, the Summit Climb team contacted Hall’s team on the Base Camp through the radio and spent four hours waiting for the rescue team comprising five climbing Sherpas to come up. In the meantime, two climbers passed them and climbed the summit without offering any help. Ten climbers, mostly high altitude climbers, died on Everest this season, according to a mountaineering source. http://www.thehimalayantimes.com/fullstory.asp?filename=aFanata0sfqzpga5Ra1ta.axamal&folder=aHaoamW&Name=Home&dtSiteDate=20060606