For Stricken Mountain Climbers, Help Is in the Bag

At 21,000-plus feet on Mt. Everest, Courtney Skinner knew he was in trouble. Every breath he drew was painful, as if he had a crushed chest.

The Pinedale, Wyo., man knew his only chance was to breathe in large amounts of oxygen quickly to counter the liquid that nearly filled his lungs, a symptom of acute mountain sickness.

“I was very critical,” he said. “Under my own motivation, I had no more power.”

Skinner, a member of the 1988 Cowboys on Everest expedition, became one of the first mountain climbers to test the Gamow Bag, a pressurized bag resembling a human-size cigar tube that combats the effects of illnesses such as acute mountain and decompression sicknesses.

After 11 hours of inhaling oxygen in the bag, Skinner emerged with his lungs 90% clear, and he was able to resume his ascent. His alternative would have been to abandon the expedition and be carried to a lower altitude for lifesaving oxygen treatments.

High-altitude illnesses, such as acute cerebral edema and acute pulmonary edema, are caused by a lack of oxygen in the blood. Early symptoms include shortness of breath, fatigue, dizziness and nausea. In later stages, the sometimes-fatal illnesses cause fluid to fill the lungs or the brain.

Mountain climbers long have known that the cure for high-altitude sicknesses is descent--the lower the altitude, the more abundant the oxygen. But descent is not always possible, particularly for climbers who are too ill to move or if the weather is bad.

The Gamow Bag gives the effect of lowering altitude 1 1/2 miles by pumping fresh air into the pressurized chamber. After being zipped inside the bag, climbers fill their lungs with much-needed oxygen.

“When the pressure started, you could almost feel a warmth or a glow come over you,” Skinner recalled. “You were more comfortable, you weren’t fighting for each breath.”

The bright red-and-yellow bag has been credited with saving about a dozen critically ill mountain climbers in the last three years, according to its inventor, Igor Gamow, a professor at the University of Colorado.

Now, he’s looking at ways of using the bag to aid balloonists and pilots and even scuba divers suffering from decompression sickness.

Gamow, who has a doctorate in biophysics and microbiology, recalled that a suggestion from Gary Ruggera, a former student, led to the development of the bag.

“He said: ‘Igor, if athletes can gain from the benefits . . . just think what would happen to mountain climbers,’ ” Gamow recalled.

At the time, Gamow was conducting high-altitude training tests on athletes who worked out on equipment inside an eight-foot pressurized bubble chamber. He fitted that technology into the portable bag, which weighs about 10 pounds.

The spring of 1987 found Gamow stitching a length of polyurethane nylon on a sewing machine. “It would take maybe two hours’ sewing and 10 hours on your hands and knees sealing it with all sorts of sticky goop,” he recalled.

The first “goop” they used was a glue for repairing tennis shoes. Today, the bag, which is marketed by Du Pont Corp., is sealed with a heat-seal process. It sells for $3,000.

Ian D. Schokking, a volunteer physician at the Kunde Hospital in the 13,000-foot Sagamatha National Park in Nepal, wrote to Gamow this spring that the bag has saved the lives of at least two patients.

“Our location, and the expense of oxygen, makes your Gamow Bag the perfect technology for treating altitude illness within our treatment area, which extends two days’ walk in four directions,” Schokking wrote.

After spending most of his life in research, Gamow is delighted with the turn his career has taken. He has traveled the world on behalf of his bag and makes annual educational trips to Nepal.