Ethics Newsline®

LONDON
The case of a man who perished on Mt. Everest — after about 40 climbers passed him by as he lay dying — has sparked a furious ethical debate not only about the obligation of one person to help another but also about the commercialization of what has became an extraordinarily dangerous avocation.

David Sharp, a 34-year-old Briton, became one of 11 people to die on Everest in the past six weeks — the worst season ever for individual fatalities — according to the London-based Independent. But what riveted attention to Sharp’s demise was the fact that as many as 40 climbers observed Sharp in a state near death on May 15, and while some did share oxygen with him, all continued on their individual treks to the summit.

Some of those climbers maintained that Sharp’s condition was hopeless and that any rescue attempt would have been futile and ultimately cost more lives. Australian climber Bob Killip, interviewed by the Sydney Morning Herald, maintained that “David was not left to die … he was as good as dead. Max [a Lebanese climber] and sherpas had spent an hour trying to help him. But it was a hopeless situation. Some might judge it as being callous, but at another level, it was just reality.”

But other mountaineers took sharp issue with that sentiment. Sir Edmund Hillary, who in 1953 became the first mountaineer to scale to the summit, told the New Zealand Press Association that he would have abandoned his own trek to the summit in order to save a fellow climber, according to the Associated Press. “It was wrong if there was a man suffering altitude problems and was huddled under a rock, just to lift your hat, say ‘good morning’ and pass on by,” he said.

Hillary said that his expedition “would never for a moment have left one of the members or a group of members just lie there and die while they plugged on towards the summit.”

The Toronto Star reported that many veteran climbers cite the commercialization of the Everest experience as a factor in Sharp’s death. While the mountain was once the domain of an experienced few, who generally could be counted on to assist one another, inexperienced climbers today pay up to $60,000 for a guided trip up the mountain, accompanied by guides who are under extraordinary pressure to get them to the summit, according to experts interviewed by the Star. As a consequence, many die in the race to the top.

Sharp’s death was punctuated by a late-breaking story about the survival of Lincoln Hall, a 50-year-old Australian, who was rescued last week after a guide, American Dan Mazur, abandoned his own attempt for the summit and sat with Hall until help arrived, according to a report from the International Herald Tribune.