Hugo is now in Kathmandu and this is his second installment on the huge avalanche that swept the Western Cwm in late April. This is the story of Nima’s rescue.
After the avalanche had passed and I had crawled from my tent I immediately thought of Nima. He had been waiting for me at the tents when I arrived at C1. The other Sherpas had already gone on ahead and were well on there way to C2, but I knew that Nima would have been right in line for a direct hit from the avalanche and I crawled back into the tent to dig out my radio. I started calling for Nima on the radio, but there was no answer. Eventually Karma came on the radio and I told him I was OK, but that I couldn’t get a hold of Nima and he was in the avalanche. I asked him to help. Even though Karma was still in the icefall with Amit, he was able to talk to the other Sherpas and basecamp and start things rolling.
I was digging out my tent, trying to find my boots, my down jacket, a hat and some gloves. I eventually found everything except gloves. By now I could hear shouting from the route, perhaps 300 yards away. I knew that there was somebody needing help and I guessed it was Nima. I put on my harness, grabbed my ice axe and a shovel and headed, gloveless, up the glacier towards the scene.
Later this is what I found out happened: When the avalanche began Nima heard and saw it – it was directly above him, about 4000 ft. He only had a moment to prepare and he crouched down and turned his back to the avalanche. He was hoping that the impact of the avalanche and the impact of any of the boulders of ice, up to the size of a small car, would be taken by his backpack. As it happened, the avalanche swept into him and immediately picked him up and tossed him like a ragdoll across the glacier and slammed him into a huge crevasse. He smashed into the crevasse wall and tumbled down to the bottom of the crevasse. He was badly injured, 100 feet down in a crevasse, but alive. He reached for his radio, but it was no longer working, so he began to call for help.
It took at least 30 minutes for me to arrive at the scene, movement is not fast at this altitude. What I saw when I arrived was amazing. Too often books and news articles take great pride in detailing how selfish and inhuman some climbers on Everest are. All those authors should’ve been on the glacier this day. I saw over 20 Sherpas and guides (some of whom had rushed down from C2) putting together immense effort and technical skill to rescue Nima from the crevasse. There were already 4 or 5 climbers down in the crevasse, including a doctor, packaging and attending Nima. Three ropes held them all safely and 15 or so climbers held those ropes with ice screw anchors and strong arms.
Two hours after the avalanche hit Nima was raised from the crevasse and I held his hand as we further packaged him, covering him with a sleeping bag and putting a sleeping pad under him on the Sked (stretcher). The report was that he had a back injury and I was relieved to see him move his legs, but you could see he was in a lot of pain and very cold. The Sherpas then took turns to carry the stretcher across the glacier and down to the only large tent at C1 – IMG’s storage tent. Once he was in the tent I assisted two doctors to stabilise his vitls by giving him two litres of warmed IV fluid and a shot for the pain. While we were doing this, Damien Benegas, an Argentinian guide who had been in the crevasse with Nima, was outside a few hundred meters away using orange juice powder to mark out a helipad on the glacier.
As soon as the doctors were satisfied the team of Sherpas swept into the tent and grabbed up the stretcher and began the rush down to the “helipad”. At the same time Damien called on the radio for the helicopter which had already flown to BC and was waiting, ready. I cannot adequately describe the scene as the small helicopter landed in a rotor-driven whiteout on a tiny bump of ice surrounded by enormous gaping crevasses. But land he did, Nima was thrust aboard, the door closed and the helicopter wheeled away down over the icefall. It was suddenly silent.
I’m still in awe of the effort and risk that so many people put into Nima’s rescue that day and even though I tried to thank as many as I could, I know i missed some, so thank you all who were there.
Nima was flown to Kathmandu hospital where he was found to have three broken ribs in the back, multiple contusions including heavy bruising of his chest and he had bitten 3/4 of the way through his tongue, right in the middle. He has had to undergo an operation on his back due to pinched or damaged blood vessels and is still in hospital, but is expected to make a full recovery. When I first saw the avalanche I thought that 20 to 30 people were probably going to die. The fact that no one died was summed up by my Sherpa Karma who said “Some times god is watching.”