Hillary Decries Failure to Save Climber

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Mt. Everest pioneer Sir Edmund Hillary said he was shocked to hear that climbers left a man to die while pressing on toward the peak of the world’s tallest mountain, published reports said today.

“Human life is far more important than just getting to the top of a mountain,” Hillary was quoted as saying in an interview with the New Zealand Press Assn.

David Sharp, 34, from Guisborough, England, died last week, apparently of oxygen deficiency, while descending after reaching Everest’s summit.

He was one of four people in about a week who died while descending.

Several parties reported seeing Sharp in various states of health and working on his oxygen equipment on the day of his death.

One party included New Zealander Mark Inglis, who became the first double amputee to reach the summit on prosthetic legs. His climbing party stopped, and one of its Sherpas provided Sharp with oxygen before the group continued its climb.

Inglis told Television New Zealand on Monday that his party was able to render only limited assistance and had to put the safety of its own members first.

Hillary, who, along with Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, was the first mountaineer to reach Everest’s summit in 1953, told the Otago Daily Times: “There have been a number of occasions when people have been neglected and left to die, and I don’t regard this as a correct philosophy. I think the whole attitude toward climbing Mt. Everest has become rather horrifying. The people just want to get to the top.”

Three other climbers, from Brazil, Russia and France, also died while descending on separate expeditions in the last week, an official said Tuesday. The climbers, whose names weren’t released, died of exhaustion, said Zhang Mingxing of the Tibet Mountaineering Assn.

The 86-year-old Hillary told the New Zealand Press Assn. that he would have abandoned his pioneering climb to save a life. He said, “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.”