KATHMANDU, OCTOBER 15
A climber from Denmark has been stranded at the high camp of Mt Ama Dablam (6,812 metres) after he suffered from snow blindness and high-altitude sickness this morning.
Rajendra Lama, managing director at Friends Adventure, said that Brian Harring Boll, 53, fell ill and couldn't move when he descended from the summit point.
Boll along with Dhana Tamang reached the summit point at around 7:30am this morning.
"Boll suffered from high altitude sickness followed by snow blindness at the mushroom ridge, in between camp II and III, while descending from the summit point," Lama said, adding that multiple efforts to manage an aerial evacuation mission failed as the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal refused to release high altitude pilots for today's mission citing a mandatory limited flying hours rule for a day.
"It will take several hours to send a ground search mission as his condition is critical. We will try to pick him up through a long-line rescue flight tomorrow morning. Boll's guide along with another Sherpa guide were able to drag him down the mountain to some extent but were unable to reach camp. They had last descended up to 6,100 metres," he added. Stating that there are a limited number of experienced pilots and that accidents in the mountains can happen at any moment, Lama said that the regulations related to limited flying hours can create problems in conducting rescue operations when they are most needed.
"The state should address such issues to avoid any kind of backlash from the international community. We are in favour of having regulations in place but they have to be flexible to avoid situations like this. We found out about Boll's condition at 1:00pm and immediately rushed to do the needful. Going through the needful procedures took a lot of time and the weather conditions started to deteriorate in the mountain as well. While boasting about tourism, mountains, and sherpas, we should also consider the safety of our customers first," Lama said.
Meanwhile, Gyanendra Bhul, spokesperson for CAAN, clarified that the rescue mission was called off due to bad weather conditions and not because of any flying hours limitations imposed on the pilot.
"We had received a notice from the Prime Minister's Office regarding the situation. A longline helicopter rescue was requested to airlift the stranded climber from the mountain. Although one of the long-line pilots had crossed his duty hours, the pilot had not surpassed his flying hours for the day. While duty hours of pilots are limited to 10 hours, flying hours have been maintained at six hours and are only counted when the pilot is in the air. Although the pilot was kept on standby till 5:00pm, the rescue mission was called off after weather conditions started to worsen in the mountain and not because of any restriction from CAAN. Despite our attempts, we had to call off the mission and request expeditions organisers to seek ground rescue options. We were ready to do what we could but the weather conditions were not in our favour," Bhul explained.
He also said that while the authority is positive towards considering humanitarian flights despite regulations in place, it is not in favour of generalising every situation as the same going forward.
"There are certainly some scenarios when the rules need to be bent, but shouldn't be made a habit out of and should be carried out by considering the situation. This does not mean that we will generalise every situation as the same but the authority certainly considers prioritising emergency, rescue, and humanitarian flights," he added.
Meanwhile, Russian woman climber Nadezhda Oleneva, 38, who went missing on Mt Dhaulagiri yesterday morning, has been spotted above 6,000m during the aerial search mission this morning. According to Iswari Paudel, managing director of Himalayan Guides, an aerial search by Kailash Helicopter spotted Oleneva at around 6,100 metres. Senior Captain Philipp Schwegler who conducted the aerial search along with Roman Abildaev located Nadezhda, who was reportedly trapped in a fracture of the ice sheet.
"We are planning to conduct a long-line rescue to evacuate her," Paudel said, adding that the fate of Nadezhda was still unknown. According to him, the long-line rescue evacuations would only be possible tomorrow morning depending on weather conditions as there are no paths leading to her location.
"A team of rescuers will leave for the mountain along with police officials. We are completing the necessary procedures to conduct the rescue flight at the earliest tomorrow morning if the weather conditions are favourable," Paudel said. Nadezhda fell into a crevasse from around 6,680m at around 11:25 am yesterday when a three-member team of Russian climbers attempted to climb Dhaulagiri without using base camp or Sherpa support.
Her teammates - Abildaev and Radom Kashapov - reported that she had fallen some 500m below as per the GPS coordinates.
A version of this article appears in the print on October 16, 2023, of The Himalayan Times
