Global outrage: A Sherpa died after suffering for hours and being neglected by many climbers

Officials late last month Pakistan The climbing season for K2, an eight thousand meter mountain that is part of the Himalayas, closed with more than 100 summits and balances. A local laborer Muhammad Hasan met with an unfortunate fate. In the past few hours, unanswered questions asked by authorities and the contribution of witness videos have centered on that death, calling into question the actions of dozens of hikers.

That was the information that came to the site initially An avalanche hit the Sherpa team Lela Peak Expeditions. On these types of summits, the groups have experts in helping the climbers, who have to explain that they are better than anyone else (that’s why they are usually local) and do the most difficult tasks. In exchange for money to earn a living. Hasan was one of these men, called upon SherpaAlthough he is not technically Nepalese.

The fact is that after his death, most of the agencies organizing these summits continued their usual routes (except for Furtenbach Adventure and Madison Mountaineering, which were interrupted due to their classification of climbing risk as high) and No rescue operation was organized to save the Pakistani.

To give an idea, these mountains have very difficult areas to access for rescue, that’s why Initial reports indicated that the Sherpa died instantly After the avalanche, conditions did not warrant any travel. But now everything has changed.

The appearance of many videos of climbers and the testimonials of some of them actually show that Hassan suffered for hours and his condition was ignored by dozens of people They went up. In the recordings, the man can be seen lying on the road, while the climbers avoid him and continue on the route of the Neck of the Bottle, as this part of K2 is known in time.

“A Pakistani climber has fallen He was hung upside down for over an hour”, declared the climber Ally Pepper in a conversation with the portal ExplorersWeb, a mountaineering expert. “They managed to get it up. At first, he was alive, but they couldn’t save him. Then they all had to climb on top of him and go to the top.

Luis Soriano, of the team Seven Summits ClubAnd testified: “Hassan slipped and fell, finally stopping, face down, crying, until someone pulled him back onto the path.” It was another Sherpa who helped us untie it and put it on the trailHalung Torchy then told his team leader what had happened. “Hassan’s Oxygen Mask Broke”A leader comment on the site ExplorersWebHe explained that Hassan could not move on his own by then After a while he “died suddenly.”

For his part, a cinematographer working in the mountains is Philipp Flemick Service TVA video shot by his drone was released there Sherpa is seen dying on the roadThe rest of the climbers continued on the route and deliberately blocked it: “Not so suddenly”, he wrote to refute the versions that were in circulation.: “It was still moving three hours after the accident.”

It was Flemick who provided the aforementioned site with a detailed version of what happened that day: “There were about 30 people at the start of the bottleneck and another large group on the trip. Then there was a huge avalanche and suddenly the headlights disappeared in the dust covering the mountain. Mingma Sherpa ran away and we all lay down on the ground. Fortunately, nothing else happened, but we were worried that something serious had happened in the Cullo di Botella. It was terrifying.” And he continued: “My team finally decided to go down. I stayed where I was, with my assistant camera Sherpa and guide Fernando from Argentina, I wanted to take pictures with the drone and I had to wait until dawn to do it. I had two more. After waiting for hours, I started filming the group going up and the other group on the trail. I was cold and my fingers were numb, so I went back to base camp at 5:30 a.m. when I used up the last of my battery. The next day, I was copying the material into the computer, and someone , ‘Hey, what’s that?’ Someone was rubbing a man in the snow. A man was lying on a backcountry trail, with about 20 people in front of him and at least 10 behind him. In the video, the man was clearly seen moving his leg, so he was clearly alive.”.

The avalanche happened at 2:35 a.m. and the video from Fleming’s drone was taken between 4:30 and 5:30 a.m., so the Sherpa had been dying for several hours. In addition, the cameraman was able to speak later with Hasan’s widow, who said that her partner had never made such a trip, as he usually worked at the base camp, but this time. He accepted the challenge as his mother needed money for medical treatment.

Luis Soriano, of the team Seven Summits Club, He did not know how to answer why there was no organized recovery: “People actually had to pass it on their way to the summit. I passed by the place the other day and the body was there. A tragedy”.

Many Sherpas and climbers found out what happened when they started their descent and saw Hassan’s corpse, if they had known they would have helped in time and even given up going up, because another person’s life should always be there. At risk, ahead of the task

For all this, the Pakistani government has launched an investigation into what happened on the mountain and whether there was any way to save Hasan’s life. For this they have created a team of experts who will collect evidence and images to come to a conclusion.

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