On May 23, Parth Upadhyay, a 24-year-old mountaineer from Mumbai, conquered Mount Everest. Euphoric, he spent the next fifteen minutes on the top watching the sunrise, clicking selfies and soaking in the breathtaking view. It was a feat he had been awaiting for the past five years and a smooth descent to the base camp was all that was left. But the ecstasy turned into horror, when barely ten minutes into the descent, he saw “climbers dying”. “It was shocking,” he said. “As I was coming down, I witnessed two of my fellow climbers succumb. While one of them lost balance and slipped from the same ridge that I had crossed a few minutes earlier, the other, David Cash (of the US) was already dead when we passed him by below the Hillary Step at 8,790m. They were like friends with whom I had shared a couple of beers back at the base camp before we headed out for the summit. It was very depressing.”
In the window between May 14 and May 27—the spring climbing season, when the weather is said to be favourable—11 climbers, including four Indians, lost their lives. There was also an unusually high number of climbers this year, evident from a picture of a deadly 'traffic-jam' that went viral on social media. It showed a long line of about 300 trekkers negotiating a narrow, precarious ridge as they marched in a single file on the final leg of the journey to the peak, reportedly waiting for hours at a stretch for their chance to climb.
Sharad Kulkarni, 58, says it was the “unending” wait between camp four and the final summit that led to the death of his wife, Anjali, 54. He says she was low on oxygen and the overcrowding got to her. He reached the summit but lost her 50m before it. On his way back to the base camp, Kulkarni also suffered a swelling in his brain that affected his eyesight.
All 11 deaths occurred between Camp 4 at about 8,000m and the summit at 8,848m. The stretch, where the body begins to die, cell by cell, minute by minute, is popularly known as the 'death zone'. “Our body works best at sea level, where the availability of oxygen is a good 21 per cent,” says Dr Sudhir Pillai, consultant cardiologist at P.D. Hinduja Hospital in Mumbai. “But, up there in the death zone, one must survive on barely a quarter of the oxygen needed at sea level. That takes a huge toll on the body, on the brain, the heart, muscles and lungs. You begin to breathe heavily and your heart rate goes several notches higher, up to 140 beats per minute, increasing the risk of heart attack.”
Upadhyay remembers how he strived to pulled himself up step by step, over eight to ten hours, from camp four to the top. “After every eight to 10 steps, I would breathe on a count of ten, and then resume. I kept doing this and my movement got very slow. Upon reaching Camp 3, at 7,200m, it took me more than fifteen minutes to just be able to untie the laces and remove my shoes. I was panting almost every second even with the oxygen mask on. I had spent the last three years working on my fitness. I would hike up mountains every morning at 3.30am, with a load of 25 kilos in my backpack, do my pranayam and meditation to keep the mind focused, and I took special care to make sure my heart rate stayed within 120 to 135bpm, even in the case of high-intensity workouts. I think that helped me negotiate the toughness of the death zone.”
However, once he began his descent, Upadhyay suffered extreme dehydration. “I was mentally and physically exhausted and dehydrated, so much that I could really feel my body shutting down, as if I was dying slowly,” he says. “I actually asked my Sherpa to leave me and proceed. He gave me a tight slap and a climber who was passing by handed me a bottle of water, which actually saved me. I had stopped eating and drinking at 7,000m, which was 48 hours before I started for the death zone.”
Dr Rinky Kapoor, a dermatologist at Raheja Fortis Hospital in Mumbai, says that blood gets thicker at high altitudes and one must keep sipping water throughout. “Also, as the body struggles to supply blood to the vital organs, the peripheral blood supply to the skin, nails, fingers and toes goes down,” he says. “Eventually, with the formation of ice underneath the skin, one ends up with frostbite, which can be highly damaging and dangerous.” The glare from the endless expanse of snow can lead to temporary loss of vision or snow blindness, which can lead to accidents and falls.
At altitudes above 8,000m, the wind blows at more than 140 km/hr, temperatures fall to below minus 60 degrees Celsius and the snowy terrain turns unpredictable and treacherous. A trekker's movement becomes slow and the chances of death become high because of fatigue, dehydration, altitude sickness, exhaustion, frost bite, snow blindness and impaired judgement. “When the air is thin and oxygen is scarce, the body is sapped of energy,” says Dr Preyas Vaidya, consultant pulmonologist, S.L. Raheja Hospital, Mulund. “It works above its capacity to inhale a lot of air in the hope of getting some oxygen to work with. This leads to high-altitude pulmonary oedema, in which the vessels in the lungs constrict, causing increased pressure. Fluid leaks from the blood vessels to the lung tissues and eventually into the air sacs. The symptoms include fatigue, shortness of breath and a persistent cough bringing up white watery fluid.”
Another major risk factor above 8,000m is the impact on the brain. “If the brain does not get enough oxygen, it can start to swell, which in turn can result in nausea, vomiting, difficulty in thinking and reasoning,” adds Umesh Zirpe, senior mountaineer and founder director of the Pune-based Guardian Giripremi Institute of Mountaineering. “This is also known as high-altitude psychosis or a state of delirium.”
Typically, experienced climbers, who have a list of conquered peaks to their credit, try to scale the death zone within 24 hours so as to dodge physical frailties that eventually set in. However, with a record number of climbers waiting in queue to scale the summit, it becomes difficult for many to survive the unplanned hours, especially with limited supply of supplementary oxygen in their backpacks.