Source: Qianjiang Evening News
On May 26, even though he had left the plateau for several days, when interviewed by Chao News reporters, Fan Jiangtao, the leader of the mountaineering team in Hunan Province, and Xie Ruxiang, a member of the team, were still a little drunk and dizzy.
More than a week ago, they were still in the bitter cold of Mount Everest, full of energy, and wanted to use their strength to announce to the world that they had reached the world's highest peak.
At the time, they did not expect that they would become famous for saving a climber who had been declared hopeless at the peak of 8450 meters above sea level.
A difficult decision at an altitude of more than 8,000 meters:
The summit is close at hand, and life is dying
At 17:30 Nepal time on May 18, Fan Jiangtao, his teammate Xie Ruxiang and others, as well as their respective Sherpa guides, set off from Camp C4 and walked towards the top of the mountain step by step.
It was a windless night, and the light reflected by the headlamps and snow allowed him to see the way forward. For Fan Jiangtao, who has climbed several mountains, "It's the perfect weather to reach the top." ”
At about 20:20, Fan Jiangtao and his Sher Barakpa were climbing along the rope of the road, when suddenly they saw an "obstacle" - there was a lying man on the side of the road, the main lock was on the rope, and all climbers passing by this place had to bypass this person in order to continue forward.
The person lying upside down has no gloves on his left hand, which is already blackened, and the thin fleece gloves he wears on his right hand, and he does not see down gloves, his one-piece suit is a lot of damage, and the whole person is shrunk into a ball, and there is no accompanying Sherpa nearby.
Fan Jiangtao judged that the climber should have been abandoned.
"Chinese?" Seeing the domestic mountaineering clothes worn by the victim and thinking of hearing the news that Chinese mountaineering team member Chen Xuebin was killed on the mountain before departure, Fan Jiangtao couldn't help but ask. The other party did not respond.
He asked again, "What's your name?" The other party made a faint sound. Fan Jiangtao carefully identified, and checked the name sticker on the mountaineering suit, and found that it was someone he knew, and he was also a mountain friend from Hunan. But he didn't know that the other party was also on this mountain, "none of us expected her to appear here." ”
Upon inspection, he ran out of oxygen, his face was covered with thin ice, his hands were frostbitten, and his vital signs were weak. The descending device behind the victim has been locked, and 2 main locks have been hung, and the whole person has been fixed to the main rope and cannot move.
Fan Jiangtao's watch shows that the altitude here is 8450 meters, and it is not easy to save people on the plateau, and the materials he carries are limited.
Under the urging of Sher Barakpa, Fan Jiangtao continued to walk upward, only after walking more than 20 meters, he couldn't move his footsteps: the peak was close at hand, life was dying, and the choice of whether to continue to move forward or turn back to save people was placed in front of him...
"This embarrasses me the most." He had been preparing for this climb for a long time, and in his "7+2" (an expedition to climb the highest peaks on seven continents and hike to the north and south poles), Mount Everest was the fourth stop. At this time, with an altitude difference of only 398.86 meters from the summit, he and Lakpa are in good physical condition and are expected to succeed in the summit.
Standing in place and hesitating for a long time, the idea of saving people in his heart finally prevailed.
He told Rakpa that he would not reach the top and would go back to save people. Rakpa objected: the girl is dead, there is no need to save it!
But Fan insisted on moving downward. After making this decision, when he thought of the goal for so many years, spent so much money, and endured so much suffering, he couldn't help it and began to cry.
When he moved to the side of the person in distress, he cried and cursed: Why did you come? Didn't you say you weren't coming? Why is it here at this time...
Despite crying and scolding, they did not stop moving on their hands: changing oxygen, drinking hot water, eating sugar and chocolate, massaging hands and feet, CPR, unlocking the locked descendant...
At about 21 o'clock, the victim regained his language skills. According to her account, she and her accompanying Sherpa had no water at noon that day, and she didn't know when there was no oxygen, she herself "fart" all the way from the balcony of Mount Everest to here, there were too many rocks to descend, she didn't know when Sherpa disappeared, and Sherpa couldn't remember what it was called.
Due to the high altitude at that time, if you want to save people, you must go down, and after treating the dangerous person with a certain physical strength, Fan Jiangtao and Lakpa carried people down the mountain.
Those who struggle to save may not be able to save it
At the moment of collapse, there was another rescue force
Xie Ruxiang, who left about an hour late, saw the team leader Fan Jiangtao and Rakpa, it was about 22 o'clock.
"Team Fan cried as soon as he saw me, saying that he ran into a person, moved down more than 100 meters, still couldn't save it, and might die soon." Seeing the state of the team leader, Xie Ruxiang was taken aback.
When asked, I learned that after Fan Jiangtao and Lakpa walked more than 100 meters with people, the victim fell unconscious again and fell on the side of the road unable to move. On the plateau, with a person moving for more than an hour, and with heavy equipment on his body, Fan Jiangtao and Rakpa's physical strength has been consumed in large quantities, and a lot of materials have been used, and they can no longer move people down.
She moved the person to the other side of the rope and found a stone slab to put down, neither hindering the later climber nor preventing her from being stepped on. He shouted: "You lie here, I will set you up, I can only go down to find someone, the two of us really can't move." ”
Looking around, the vast snowy mountains, not sure if I can find someone to help, maybe three or four hours have passed, and when I come back, I can only see the corpse. Afraid that this was the last moment of the victim's life, he took out the accompanying camera and asked the other party if he had any last words. The other party can't wake up.
When he met Xie Ruxiang, Fan Jiangtao had just put down the victim and only walked twenty or thirty meters. His mind was full of thoughts: after so much effort, the hope of reaching the top was gone, and the people he wanted to save could not be saved, and his heart was extremely sad and collapsed.
Before Xie Ruxiang set off, he heard that two Chinese died on the mountain, one of which was Chen Xuebin. At this time, listening to Fan Jiangtao's description, it was guessed that this may be the second Chinese in the news. "Then I'll go up and take a look." He said.
He fed water to the person in distress and found that he could still feed it, "which shows that she still has gas, and if you don't save her, it's night, and in three or four hours, she will definitely die." ”
He immediately decided to save people: "There are not many choices to make at this time. ”
Since he had only set off not long ago, Xie Ruxiang and Sherpa Bienba accompanied him relatively had sufficient physical strength and materials. Bienba is physically strong and can cook outdoors without oxygen at Camp C4, "I know he's strong, I know he can do it." ”
But carrying people down the mountain consumes a lot of physical strength and materials, the vitality of the distressed person is too weak, Bian Ba also said that there is no way to save, as a Sherpa guide who climbs Mount Everest all year round, he has seen too many similar situations.
Thinking that "under the heavy reward, there will be a brave man", Xie Ruxiang said to Bian Ba: "I will give you 10,000 US dollars and drag her to C4, whether it is a person or a corpse." ”
Bian Ba agreed, he carried the distress on his back, and when he went down to Fan Jiangtao, Fan Jiangtao and Lakpa also helped to put on the handle, and the three of them carried the distress person to the camp together, and Xie Ruxiang carefully groped down the mountain alone, "If you can contribute, don't add chaos." ”
In this way, with the darkness of the night, another two hours or so, at 0:15 a.m. Nepal time on May 19, Fan Jiangtao and two Sherpas sent the victims to the camp; Subsequently, Fan Jiangtao turned back to pick up Xie Ruxiang, who was alone.
At 0:45, Xie Ruxiang and Fan Jiangtao made peace, returned to the camp, and settled the people in distress.
At about 7:30 a.m., the person in charge of the travel agency in distress came and picked her up.
Life is above all else
Everest is missing a road sign
Climbing Mount Everest is not an isolated phenomenon that attracted worldwide attention decades ago.
According to CCTV news, during the 2023 spring mountaineering season, as of May 14, Nepalese authorities have issued permits to climb Mount Everest to 478 climbers. Nepal's tourism department reported that on May 17 alone, at least 175 climbers successfully reached the summit on the Nepalese side of the southern slope of Mount Everest.
As the team leader, Fan Jiangtao has a lot of pressure in his heart and is full of guilt for his teammates.
In the 4-person team he led this time, he and Xie Ruxiang retreated early due to rescue; 1 person chose to give up on the way to the summit because he saw his teammates rescuing endangered mountain friends and was affected; Only one person did not know, and after successfully reaching the top, he asked the captain: "Why did I wait for you guys on the mountain for so long, and no one came up?" Such a question made Fan Jiangtao particularly sad.
Infinite scenery at the dangerous peak, is their yearning: climb Mount Everest, what a great thing!
The average person spends about 400,000 yuan, long-term adjustment time to find opportunities to exercise; Prepare for decades, exercise for years, adapt dozens of days in advance... As a result, at the beginning of the top, it was abandoned halfway because of saving people, and there must be regrets.
However, the number of hundreds of summits every year is easy to forget, climbing Mount Everest is actually dangerous.
Some netizens once said: Human beings climb the mountain to think that they have conquered nature, but they are not. Man has never conquered nature, but nature allows you to stand in that place.
Xie Ruxiang has drunk tea and chatted with Chen Xuebin many times, and the death of many people in this year's mountaineering season also made him sigh with emotion: "In the eight-kilometer forbidden area, there are resources (oxygen, water, Sherpa) and there is not necessarily life, and there is no way to survive without resources." ”
In the extreme environment of Mount Everest, it is not easy to save a person, he said, can be saved is also because of resources, if you encounter a person in distress on the way down the mountain, only the remaining resources may only be enough for their own use, and they are powerless to save people.
On May 22, Xie Ruxiang met the rescued person in Kathmandu, the other party's state was similar to drunken oxygen, his brain was relatively dizzy, and his expression was not particularly clear. But in the end, he survived.
"The value of a life must be more than one summit of Mount Everest!" Xie Ruxiang said with a smile that mountaineering and giving up is more difficult than persisting, but even if you want to go to the moon, if you want to save someone, you may have to give up landing on the moon.
Because the mountain was there, these climbers chose to move forward; Because the people were there, Fan Jiangtao and Xie Ruxiang chose to retreat.
As Xie Ruxiang said on social media: On the Everest Road, there is one less signpost...
Source: Chao News reporter Xu Ting