Miracle on Mount Everest

There are some things in life that simply defy reason.

Especially perhaps on Mount Everest.

Lincoln Hall had been given up for dead by experienced Sherpas who’d risked their own lives to save him.  He’d spent the night alone in sub-zero cold at 28,000 feet—no tent, no sleeping bag, no oxygen—just yards from the frozen body of another climber in his group who’d died the day before.

But he lived to tell us his story—his hands and right foot still bandaged due to severe frostbite and his voice still hoarse from the bitter cold.

Matt Lauer, NBC News: Why did you live?

Lincoln Hall: Well, I guess that’s a good question.

Lincoln picks up his story of survival at the top of the world, on May 25, 9 a.m., when he stepped onto the summit of Mount Everest—a lifelong dream.

Hall: As we were approaching the summit when I knew it was there I had this feeling  of, well,  joy. Yeah. joy.  But it was sort of short lived because, you know, the summit’s only halfway. You still have to get down.

It was a thought driven home with a jolt when, during his descent from the summit, a Sherpa told him about the death of another member of his expedition, the visually impaired climber, Thomas Weber.

Hall:  It was so unexpected that I was stunned.  There’d been no sign that Thomas had been unwell or was having difficulty.  So it was an incredible shock.  And it made me just want to get down quicker than ever.

But as much as Hall wanted to hurry, he recalls that he seemed to be slowing down instead.

Lauer: You get this news now that Thomas has died.

Hall:  Yeah.

Lauer: And it sounds as if that almost in some ways could have triggered something in you.  Not only emotionally but physically as well.

Hall: Yeah.  That’s right. I was all ready to go but then I just decided I needed to have a sleep.  And I knew I shouldn’t have a sleep.

Hall remembers reaching a tricky climb down a 100 foot rock face, the same place where Weber had collapsed and died. Hall thought it would only take him 15 minutes.

Hall: But apparently it took me a couple of hours to get down.                      

Lauer: According to the sherpas you began to act in somewhat of a bizarre manner.

Hall: Yeah, apparently.

But that’s the point at which hall’s memory begins to fade.

Lauer: Your brain was swelling.  You were up there for a long time.  The sherpas were trying to help you.  For several hours they were trying to see if they could get you down that portion of the mountain.

Hall: Yeah, yeah.  They were really inciting me to keep going, keep moving.  “You’ve got to keep going, you’ve got to keep going.”  So I remember that part.

But Hall realized only later that after at least 19 hours in the death zone, he passed out. His sherpas were themselves running out of oxygen and had to make a quick diagnosis.

Lauer: At one point, Lincoln, the sherpas in a way of testing to see if someone is alive or dead they poked you in the eye, right in the eye.

Hall: Yeah, apparently.

Lauer: And apparently you had no response.

Hall: Yes. And luckily my eyes seem to be fine.  So that’s good.

Lauer: So that was their signal that they could leave you. Either you were already dead or you weren’t gonna survive.

Hall: Yeah.

Lauer: And they left you.

Hall: Yeah. Given that there was nothing they could do with me really the only choice they had was to go down. I don’t remember the sherpas leaving me.  Because I’d already passed out.

Unconscious at 28,000 feet with no oxygen, no food, no water and no sleeping bag – Hall was now in the jaws of a minus 20 degree nightfall.

And yet, when night descended, there was a most extraordinary turn of events.

Lincoln Hall suddenly came to and woke up. That he was alive, was a miracle.  But he didn’t exactly feel that way.  He recalled the moment in an interview just days after his rescue.

Hall: I remember waking up with a start in the middle of the night—I don't know what time in the night, pitch black—way up high on Everest, and uh suddenly  realizing that I’d blown it.

“Blown it” because he’d promised himself he’d get back to his family alive—but now that seemed unlikely.

Hall: I could feel the snow but I couldn’t feel the snow, because my hands were freezing. I tried to feel my feet through my boots, and I could sense that they were going wooden, so I was actually freezing to the spot.

Lauer: You had to look around and say this is bad.

Hall: Yes.

Lauer: And where is everybody?

Hall: I remember thinking that, well, this was deadly serious.

But just then, Lincoln saw some people approaching. Was help arriving at last?

Hall: Where I was there were other people that I couldn’t talk to.

Lauer: You could see ‘em but you couldn’t communicate with ‘em.

Hall: Yeah, they were sort of in the distance.  I mean that’s a bit silly because the ridge was only this wide.  But somehow the perspective had changed.  And—so I couldn’t communicate.

The reason was simple:  the people weren’t there.  Hall was hallucinating.

All through the night he wandered in and out of delirium, never knowing what was real... except perhaps that death was creeping up on him.

Hall: It’s so easy to die in that sort of situation.  I knew that because I know people who’ve died that way.

But still he struggled to keep his promise.

Hall: I realized I was so close to dying I thought, “I can’t die.  I’ve gotta go back.  I’ve got to—I’ve got to come back to the family.”  To my wife and boys. That was a commitment that I made to myself when I decided I’d go on this expedition.  That I would come back alive. 

Lauer: But Lincoln, you know what?  Mt. Everest doesn’t  give a damn about commitments you make to your family.

Hall: No.

Lauer: 28,000, they don’t care.  Way below zero, doesn’t care.  No oxygen.  Doesn’t care.

Hall: All I can say is that I was determined to stay alive. 

Lauer: How long did that night feel to you?

Hall: Well, sort of timeless, actually. I was just trying to keep myself warm, just keep my core warm.  You know, holding my hands in like this across my chest.  Trying to just sort of moving, keep making sure I was moving a bit just because I thought that would stop me from going to sleep.

Lauer: Did you expect to live?

Hall: I told myself I had no option but to live.

And somehow...he did live through that night.

His memory is hazy but he recalls flashes of the morning  when, as he sat atop a knife-edge ridge, a group of men stopped to help him. One introduced himself as Dan Mazur.

Hall: My first memory of that meeting was Dan grabbing me and—telling me to sit down. He grabbed because he thought I was gonna fall off the  10,000 foot drop.

Lauer:  Yeah, Yeah, like a 10,000 feet fall to one side, 6 or 7,000 feet to the other.

But even as Hall was being rescued his wife Barbara and their two boys still believed he was dead.

Hall:   And during the night, which wasn’t a very restful night, I dreamt he was alive. 

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