I thought it was common practice to leave them because a rescue attempt would usually kill everyone involved. You either come prepared to go all the way up and all the way down, or you stay on the mountain.
K2 is an incredibly dangerous mountain. The possibility of a rescue attempt would depend on many factors that we have no way to know. In these sorts of situations even other climbers nearby might have a complete different opinion. In many cases like this people are often not thinking correctly believing they saw something that wasn’t even there or just completely misperceived due to attitude or exhaustion or illness.
You’re thinking of the Himalaya above a certain height. There it’s impossible to rescue.
On K2, multiple knowledged people have said in interviews that usually you would only need to give him oxygen and then he should have been able to descend himself. Eyewitnesses say that to their knowledge he couldnt move by himself anymore. But those eyewitnesses also said he was dead within an hour, which has been proven to be wrong.
The critical thing here is that no one was asked for help. The crews trying to summit simply decided to continue upwards, and no one tried to bring him down the mountain or ask for help from the basecamp.
I thought it was common practice to leave them because a rescue attempt would usually kill everyone involved. You either come prepared to go all the way up and all the way down, or you stay on the mountain.
K2 is an incredibly dangerous mountain. The possibility of a rescue attempt would depend on many factors that we have no way to know. In these sorts of situations even other climbers nearby might have a complete different opinion. In many cases like this people are often not thinking correctly believing they saw something that wasn’t even there or just completely misperceived due to attitude or exhaustion or illness.
You’re thinking of the Himalaya above a certain height. There it’s impossible to rescue.
On K2, multiple knowledged people have said in interviews that usually you would only need to give him oxygen and then he should have been able to descend himself. Eyewitnesses say that to their knowledge he couldnt move by himself anymore. But those eyewitnesses also said he was dead within an hour, which has been proven to be wrong.
The critical thing here is that no one was asked for help. The crews trying to summit simply decided to continue upwards, and no one tried to bring him down the mountain or ask for help from the basecamp.