Miracle on Mount Everest

The summit of Mount Everest: For many an adventurer, it’s the ultimate prize.  Australian Lincoln Hall had tried but failed to reach it 22 years before. Now, he was back with a perfect opportunity to realize a lifelong dream.

Other, younger members of Hall’s team had already abandoned their quest for the summit due to altitude sickness.  But Hall, at age 50, was ready to go.

Lincoln Hall (documentary footage): I’m feeling really fit myself and really keen to get up there which means I probably should get on with putting some of these things in there...

He started for the summit around midnight on May 25.  Just before he left, he called his wife Barbara on a satellite phone.

Barbara Hall, Lincoln Hall's wife: He sounded very lucid.  He sounded full of anticipation, full of hope and strength. 

A bit farther down the mountain, American guide Dan Mazur was preparing his clients for their push to the summit. The weather was clear but he knew how quickly that could change on Everest.

Dan Mazur:  You know you need to be able to make a good decision about whether you should set off for the summit from the high camp. You’re always  worrying about these things, watching.

Everest does not tolerate bad decisions. The realm above 26,000 feet is called the death zone— so cold and so deprived of oxygen it’s not compatible with human life.  The mountain is dotted with corpses up there. Climbers actually have to step over some of them on the way up.

Mazur: It’s very upsetting and it’s hard to explain but you know whenever I see those people I’m not a religious person. But when I see  their bodies out on a slope I can’t help but say a prayer for them or what I think is a prayer. You know, say, “God rest their souls.” 

Matt Lauer, NBC News: There but for the grace of God.

Mazur: Exactly.

Mazur knew that just 10 days earlier, a British climber named David Sharp died on Everest. Forty climbers passed him by on their way to the summit.

At the time, there were many reasons given: some speculated climbers had invested too much money to stop before reaching their goal, others said the motive was simple: self-preservation— if the climbers had tried to rescue sharp at such extreme altitude, the effort could have cost them their lives.

But many seasoned mountaineers say those are poor excuses.

Mazur:  How could you sleep at night thinking that you passed somebody by who needed your help? 

Everyone on Hall’s team had also heard about David Sharp.  Hall was climbing with a large commercial expedition. Everyone on the summit push had been together for weeks and knew each other well.

One was a visually impaired climber, a German named Thomas Weber, who was using his summit bid to raise money for charity.  He was accompanied by a photographer who shot this video.  There was also a Dutch guide and five Sherpas, natives of the region who are a key part of every Everest expedition.

The final ascent is marked by three technical sections, commonly called steps.  At sea level, they’d just be moderate rock climbs.  But up in the death zone, where the lack of oxygen saps your strength and may impair your judgment—the three steps can cost you the summit or your life.

Hall and his Sherpas easily cleared the three steps.

Lauer: So did you do the math in your head, “Okay, he called me a few hours ago.  It’s probably gonna take him nine hours.  He’s probably on—"

Barbara Hall: Yeah— I was heading off to work and thinking, “Oh well, he’s probably, you know, summiting soon.” 

In fact, Lincoln Hall and his Sherpas did reach the summit at about 9 a.m. on May 25.  Back at base camp, his team celebrated, but just minutes later, the news from the mountain turned grim.

A member of Hall’s team, the visually impaired climber, Thomas Weber, had fallen behind.  He never reached the summit, and now his guide radioed that Weber was having a crisis.

It was a terrible scene.  Weber suddenly turned to his guide and said, “I’m dying.”  Then he collapsed.

Just like that, a member of Lincoln Hall’s team, Thomas Weber, became another body on Everest.  And the news suddenly got even worse: the expedition leader announced that Lincoln Hall was now in trouble on his descent.

They did send another Sherpa, but that didn’t make any difference.

FREE VIDEO Almost dead June 25: Lincoln Hall was lying in the snow unconscious, and the Sherpas had no choice but to leave him there. Via the Internet, word of his death spread. But the story doesn’t end there. Dateline NBC

Lincoln was stuck at 28,000 feet.  The Harrises were 10-thousand feet below, at base camp, helpless to do anything but plead with him.

Richard (talking to Lincoln on radio): You’ve just gotta get down, mate. It’s Richard. Christopher and I are all waiting here for you. And Dorje and Dillon and Barbara, they’re all worried about you. So you just give it your best and keep coming down so you can talk to them, mate.

But Lincoln wouldn’t budge.  The Sherpas reported that he was irrational.  He wanted to lie down and go to sleep— a life-threatening move.  The Sherpas couldn’t carry him. They were too weak themselves from the lack of oxygen.  Crucial hours passed.

“Lincoln is still not moving. And the two sherpas that are with him are beginning to suffer the same problems that Lincoln is suffering, which means that the Sherpas also are now in need of rescue. Over.”

Even though Hall was breathing supplemental oxygen, he had all the symptoms of a severe form of altitude sickness—brain swelling that can cause deep fatigue, hallucinations... even death.

Back in Australia, Lincoln’s wife Barbara was just getting home from work.

Barbara Hall: I was looking forward to hearing from him.  I imagined that, you know, given that he had summited quite early in the day, he would probably phone me from the top camp—when he got down.

But there was no call from Lincoln.  She got another call instead.

Barbara Hall:  I got a message from the wife of another member of the expedition, to say that in fact he was in difficulty and still quite close to the summit.  And then, that’s when I really felt my heart sink. 

It was 7 p.m.. The Sherpas had spent nine hours trying to talk Lincoln down the mountain.  That meant a total of 19 hours exposed in the death zone.  The expedition leader knew the Sherpas were in danger of dying too.

Lincoln Hall now was lying in the snow, unconscious.  The Sherpas were running out of oxygen.  No helicopter could fly high enough to reach them.  There was only one choice left. 

Richard Harris: “It’s bad enough if Lincoln is gonna go. That these Sherpas, honestly, if they cant move Lincoln, they must leave the location and come down. Over.”

The Sherpas wanted to have no doubt so they poked Lincoln in the eyeball.  No response.  At 7:20 p.m., they declared him dead.

As night fell, the Sherpas collected Lincoln Hall’s backpack, extra oxygen, food, and water and left him at 28,000 feet, another corpse just a stone’s throw from the body of visually impaired climber Thomas Weber.

Via the Internet, word of Hall’s death instantly swept the climbing world.  A good friend called Lincoln’s wife Barbara.

Barbara Hall: His voice was broken up. He said, “I don’t know how to tell you.”  And I said, “Well, you don’t have to.” I think the worst part of what he told me was that Lincoln had only passed away 20 minutes earlier. You know, while I’d been sitting there waiting,  my husband had been dying.

Next she had to tell their sons.

Barbara Hall:  I said—“You know, I really don’t know how to tell you this but, you know, your dad’s passed away.”  And they were just stunned, completely silent. And so we all just sat there holding hands for maybe ten or 15 minutes.  And let the news sink in. 

It’s wintertime in Australia. The nights are cold.  Barbara and her sons curled up in their beds and tried to sleep.

Barbara Hall:  But we could all hear one another at different times, grieving, crying.

Lauer: What’s it like, as a mother, to hear your son sobbing like that because he’s lost his dad?

Hall: It’s hard to know how to comfort them and how to comfort oneself. 

Up on Mount Everest, the temperature was 15 below zero and falling by the minute.  Lincoln Hall, father, husband, mountaineer was lost to the frigid night.

Or so everyone thought.

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