Doctor warns on Everest deaths

Climbers on Mount Everest need a better understanding of altitude sickness to halt an increase in deaths there, a doctor who climbed the world’s highest peak earlier this year said on Friday.

Andrew Sutherland of the Nuffield Department of Surgery in Oxford, England, said the unofficial death toll on Mount Everest had already reached 15 this year—the highest since 1996 when 16 people died, eight in one night after an unexpected storm.

Writing in the latest edition of the British Medical Journal, Sutherland said climbers often confused fitness with their ability to survive at high altitudes.

“In my view, climbers are not climbing beyond their ability but instead beyond their altitude ability,” he said.

Despite better understanding of acclimatisation, improved climbing equipment and established routes, the death rate on Everest remains alarmingly high, with about one death for every 10 successful ascents.

Many climbers die from high altitude cerebral oedema (HACE) and high altitude pulmonary oedema (HAPE)—two kinds of altitude sickness that can cause a fatal accumulation of fluid in the brain or lungs.

SOURCE: British Medical Journal, August 26, 2006.

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