Ken Kamler: Medical miracle on Everest

107,685 views ・ 2010-03-18

TED


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

00:15
OK. We've heard a lot of people
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speak at this conference
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about the power of the human mind.
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And what I'd like to do today
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is give you a vivid example
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of how that power can be unleashed
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when someone is in a survival situation,
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how the will to survive can bring that out in people.
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This is an incident which occurred on Mount Everest;
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it was the worst disaster in the history of Everest.
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And when it occurred, I was the only doctor on the mountain.
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So I'll take you through that
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and we'll see what it's like
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when someone really
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summons the will to survive.
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00:55
OK, this is Mount Everest.
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It's 29,035 feet high.
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I've been there six times: Four times I did work with National Geographic,
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making tectonic plate measurements;
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twice, I went with NASA
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doing remote sensing devices.
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It was on my fourth trip to Everest
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that a comet passed over the mountain. Hyakutake.
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And the Sherpas told us then
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that was a very bad omen,
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and we should have listened to them.
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Everest is an extreme environment.
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There's only one-third as much oxygen at the summit as there is at sea level.
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Near the summit, temperatures
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can be 40 degrees below zero.
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You can have winds 20 to 40 miles an hour.
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It's actually a wind-chill factor
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which is lower than a summer day on Mars.
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I remember one time being up near the summit,
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I reached into my down jacket
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for a drink from my water bottle,
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inside my down jacket,
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only to discover that the water was already frozen solid.
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That gives you an idea of just how severe
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things are near the summit.
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OK, this is the route up Everest.
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It starts at base camp, at 17,500 feet.
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Camp One, 2,000 feet higher.
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Camp Two, another 2,000 feet higher up,
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what's called the Western Cwm.
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CampThree is at the base of Lhotse,
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which is the fourth highest mountain in the world, but it's dwarfed by Everest.
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And then Camp Four is the highest camp;
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that's 3,000 feet short of the summit.
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02:20
This is a view of base camp.
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This is pitched on a glacier at 17,500 feet.
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It's the highest point you can bring your yaks
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before you have to unload.
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And this is what they unloaded for me:
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I had four yak loads of medical supplies,
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which are dumped in a tent,
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and here I am trying to arrange things.
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This was our expedition.
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It was a National Geographic expedition,
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but it was organized by The Explorers Club.
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There were three other expeditions on the mountain,
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an American team, a New Zealand team
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and an IMAX team.
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And, after actually two months of preparation,
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we built our camps all the way up the mountain.
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This is a view looking up the icefall,
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the first 2,000 feet of the climb
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up from base camp.
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And here's a picture in the icefall;
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it's a waterfall, but it's frozen, but it moves very slowly,
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and it actually changes every day.
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When you're in it, you're like a rat in a maze;
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you can't even see over the top.
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This is near the top of the icefall.
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You want to climb through at night when the ice is frozen.
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That way, it's less likely to tumble down on you.
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These are some climbers reaching the top of the icefall just at sun-up.
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This is me crossing a crevasse.
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We cross on aluminum ladders with safety ropes attached.
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That's another crevasse.
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Some of these things are 10 stories deep or more,
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and one of my climbing friends says that
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the reason we actually climb at night
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is because if we ever saw the bottom
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of what we're climbing over,
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we would never do it.
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Okay. This is Camp One.
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It's the first flat spot you can reach
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after you get up to the top of the icefall.
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And from there we climb up to Camp Two,
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which is sort of the foreground.
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These are climbers moving up the Lhotse face,
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that mountain toward Camp Three.
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They're on fixed ropes here.
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A fall here, if you weren't roped in,
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would be 5,000 feet down.
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This is a view taken from camp three.
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You can see the Lhotse face is in profile,
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it's about a 45 degree angle. It takes two days to climb it,
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so you put the camp halfway through.
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If you notice, the summit of Everest is black.
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There's no ice over it.
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And that's because Everest is so high,
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it's in the jet stream,
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and winds are constantly scouring the face,
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so no snow gets to accumulate.
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What looks like a cloud behind the summit ridge
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is actually snow being blown off the summit.
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This is on the way up from Camp Three to Camp Four,
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moving in, up through the clouds.
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And this is at Camp Four.
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Once you get to Camp Four, you have maybe 24 hours
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to decide if you're going to go for the summit or not.
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Everybody's on oxygen, your supplies are limited,
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and you either have to go up or go down,
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make that decision very quickly.
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This is a picture of Rob Hall.
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He was the leader of the New Zealand team.
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This is a radio he used later to call his wife
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that I'll tell you about.
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05:17
These are some climbers waiting to go to the summit.
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05:19
They're up at Camp Four, and you can see that there's wind blowing off the summit.
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This is not good weather to climb in,
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so the climbers are just waiting, hoping that the wind's going to die down.
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And, in fact, the wind does die down at night.
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It becomes very calm, there's no wind at all.
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This looks like a good chance to go for the summit.
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So here are some climbers starting out for the summit
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on what's called the Triangular Face.
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It's the first part of climb.
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It's done in the dark, because it's actually less steep than what comes next,
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and you can gain daylight hours if you do this in the dark.
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So that's what happened.
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The climbers got on the southeast ridge.
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This is the view looking at the southeast ridge.
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The summit would be in the foreground.
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From here, it's about 1,500 feet
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up at a 30-degree angle to the summit.
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But what happened that year was
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the wind suddenly and unexpectedly picked up.
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A storm blew in that no one was anticipating.
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You can see here some ferocious winds
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blowing snow way high off the summit.
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And there were climbers on that summit ridge.
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This is a picture of me in that area
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taken a year before,
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and you can see I've got an oxygen mask on
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with a rebreather.
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I have an oxygen hose connected here.
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You can see on this climber, we have two oxygen tanks in the backpack --
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little titanium tanks, very lightweight --
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and we're not carrying much else.
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This is all you've got. You're very exposed on the summit ridge.
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OK, this is a view taken on the summit ridge itself.
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This is on the way toward the summit,
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on that 1,500-foot bridge.
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All the climbers here are climbing unroped,
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and the reason is because
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the drop off is so sheer on either side
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that if you were roped to somebody,
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you'd wind up just pulling them off with you.
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So each person climbs individually.
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And it's not a straight path at all,
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it's very difficult climbing,
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and there's always the risk
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of falling on either side.
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If you fall to your left, you're going to fall
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8,000 feet into Nepal;
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if you fall to your right,
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you're going to fall 12,000 feet into Tibet.
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So it's probably better to fall into Tibet
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because you'll live longer.
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(Laughter)
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But, either way, you fall for the rest of your life.
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OK. Those climbers were up near the summit,
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along that summit ridge that you see up there,
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and I was down here in Camp Three.
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My expedition was down in Camp Three,
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while these guys were up there in the storm.
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The storm was so fierce that we had to lay,
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fully dressed, fully equipped,
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laid out on the tent floor
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to stop the tent from blowing off the mountain.
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It was the worst winds I've ever seen.
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And the climbers up on the ridge
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were that much higher, 2,000 feet higher,
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and completely exposed to the elements.
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We were in radio contact with some of them.
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This is a view taken along the summit ridge.
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Rob Hall, we heard by radio,
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was up here, at this point in the storm
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with Doug Hansen.
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And we heard that Rob was OK,
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but Doug was too weak to come down.
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He was exhausted, and Rob was staying with him.
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We also got some bad news in the storm
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that Beck Weathers, another climber,
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had collapsed in the snow and was dead.
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There were still 18 other climbers
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that we weren't aware of their condition.
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They were lost. There was total confusion on the mountain;
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all the stories were confusing, most of them were conflicting.
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We really had no idea what was going on during that storm.
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We were just hunkered down
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in our tents at Camp Three.
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Our two strongest climbers, Todd Burleson and Pete Athans,
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decided to go up to try to rescue who they could
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even though there was a ferocious storm going.
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They tried to radio a message to Rob Hall,
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who was a superb climber
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stuck, sort of, with a weak climber
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up near the summit.
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I expected them to say to Rob,
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"Hold on. We're coming."
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But in fact, what they said was,
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"Leave Doug and come down yourself.
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There's no chance of saving him,
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and just try to save yourself at this point."
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And Rob got that message,
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but his answer was,
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"We're both listening."
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Todd and Pete got up to the summit ridge, up in here,
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and it was a scene of complete chaos up there.
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But they did what they could to stabilize the people.
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I gave them radio advice from Camp Three,
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and we sent down the climbers that could make it down
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under their own power.
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The ones that couldn't we just sort of decided to leave up at Camp Four.
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So the climbers were coming down along this route.
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This is taken from Camp Three, where I was.
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And they all came by me
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so I could take a look at them and see what I could do for them,
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which is really not much, because Camp Three
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is a little notch cut in the ice
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in the middle of a 45-degree angle.
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You can barely stand outside the tent.
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It's really cold; it's 24,000 feet.
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The only supplies I had at that altitude
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were two plastic bags
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with preloaded syringes
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of painkiller and steroids.
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So, as the climbers came by me,
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I sort of assessed whether or not they were in condition
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to continue on further down.
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The ones that weren't that lucid or were not that well coordinated,
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I would give an injection of steroids
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to try to give them some period
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of lucidity and coordination
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where they could then work their way further down the mountain.
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It's so awkward to work up there that sometimes
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I even gave the injections right through their clothes.
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It was just too hard to maneuver
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any other way up there.
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While I was taking care of them,
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we got more news about Rob Hall.
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There was no way we could get up high enough to rescue him.
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He called in to say that he was alone now.
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Apparently, Doug had died higher up on the mountain.
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But Rob was now too weak to come down himself,
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and with the fierce winds and up at that altitude,
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he was just beyond rescue
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and he knew it.
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At that point, he asked
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to be paged into his wife.
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He was carrying a radio.
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His wife was home in New Zealand,
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seven months pregnant with their first child,
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and Rob asked to be patched into her. That was done,
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and Rob and his wife
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had their last conversation.
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They picked the name for their baby.
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Rob then signed off,
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and that was the last we ever heard of him.
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I was faced with treating a lot of critically ill patients
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at 24,000 feet,
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which was an impossibility.
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So what we did was, we got the victims
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down to 21,000 feet, where it was easier for me to treat them.
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This was my medical kit.
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It's a tackle box filled with medical supplies.
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This is what I carried up the mountain.
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I had more supplies lower down,
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which I asked to be brought up to meet me at the lower camp.
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And this was scene at the lower camp.
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The survivors came in one by one.
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Some of them were hypothermic,
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some of them were frostbitten, some were both.
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What we did was try to warm them up as best we could,
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put oxygen on them and try to revive them,
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which is difficult to do at 21,000 feet,
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when the tent is freezing.
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This is some severe frostbite on the feet,
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severe frostbite on the nose.
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This climber was snow blind.
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As I was taking care of these climbers,
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we got a startling experience.
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Out of nowhere, Beck Weathers,
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who we had already been told was dead,
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stumbled into the tent,
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just like a mummy, he walked into the tent.
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I expected him to be incoherent,
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but, in fact, he walked into the tent and said to me,
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"Hi, Ken. Where should I sit?"
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And then he said,
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"Do you accept my health insurance?"
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(Laughter)
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He really said that.
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(Laughter)
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So he was completely lucid, but he was very severely frostbitten.
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You can see his hand is completely white;
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his face, his nose, is burned.
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First, it turns white, and then when it's completed necrosis,
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it turns black, and then it falls off.
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It's the last stage, just like a scar.
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So, as I was taking care of Beck,
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he related what had been going on up there.
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He said he had gotten lost in the storm,
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collapsed in the snow,
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and just laid there, unable to move.
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Some climbers had come by and looked at him,
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and he heard them say, "He's dead."
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But Beck wasn't dead; he heard that,
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but he was completely unable to move.
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He was in some sort of catatonic state
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where he could be aware of his surroundings,
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but couldn't even blink to indicate that he was alive.
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So the climbers passed him by,
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and Beck lay there for a day, a night
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and another day,
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in the snow.
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And then he said to himself,
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"I don't want to die.
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I have a family to come back to."
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And the thoughts of his family,
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his kids and his wife,
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generated enough energy,
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enough motivation in him,
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so that he actually got up.
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After laying in the snow that long a time,
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he got up and found his way back to the camp.
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And Beck told me that story very quietly,
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but I was absolutely stunned by it.
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I couldn't imagine anybody laying in the snow
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that long a time
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and then getting up.
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He apparently reversed
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an irreversible hypothermia.
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And I can only try to speculate
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on how he did it.
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So, what if we had Beck
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hooked up to a SPECT scan,
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something that could actually measure brain function?
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Just very simply, the three parts of the brain:
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the frontal lobe, where you focus
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your attention and concentration;
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you have the temporal lobe,
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15:21
where you form images and keep memories;
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and the posterior part of your brain,
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which contains the cerebellum, which controls motion;
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and the brain stem,
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where you have your basic maintenance functions,
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like heartbeat and respiration.
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So let's take a cut through the brain here,
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and imagine that Beck
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was hooked up to a SPECT scan.
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This measures dynamic blood flow
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and therefore energy flow within the brain.
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So you have the prefrontal cortex here,
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lighting up in red.
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This is a pretty evenly distributed scan.
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You have the middle area,
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where the temporal lobe might be, in here,
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and the posterior portion, where the maintenance functions are in the back.
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This is a roughly normal scan,
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showing equal distribution of energy.
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Now, you go to this one and you see how much more
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the frontal lobes are lighting up.
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This might be what Beck would be experiencing
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when he realizes he's in danger.
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He's focusing all his attention
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on getting himself out of trouble.
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These parts of the brain are quieting down.
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He's not thinking about his family or anybody else at this point,
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and he's working pretty hard.
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He's trying to get his muscles going and get out of this.
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OK, but he's losing ground here.
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He's running out of energy.
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It's too cold; he can't keep his metabolic fires going,
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and, you see, there's no more red here;
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his brain is quieting down.
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He's collapsed in the snow here. Everything is quiet,
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there's very little red anywhere.
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Beck is powering down.
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He's dying.
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You go on to the next scan,
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but, in Beck's case,
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you can see that the middle part of his brain
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is beginning to light up again.
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He's beginning to think about his family.
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He's beginning to have images
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that are motivating him to get up.
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He's developing energy in this area
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through thought.
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And this is how he's going to turn thought
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back into action.
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This part of the brain is called the anterior cingulate gyrus.
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It's an area in which
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a lot of neuroscientists believe
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the seat of will exists.
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This is where people make decisions, where they develop willpower.
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And, you can see, there's an energy flow
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going from the mid portion of his brain,
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where he's got images of his family,
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into this area, which is powering his will.
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Okay. This is getting stronger and stronger
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to the point where it's actually
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going to be a motivating factor.
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He's going to develop enough energy in that area --
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after a day, a night and a day --
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to actually motivate himself to get up.
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And you can see here,
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he's starting to get more energy into the frontal lobe.
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He's beginning to focus, he can concentrate now.
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He's thinking about what he's got to do to save himself.
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So this energy has been transmitted
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up toward the front of his brain,
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and it's getting quieter down here,
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but he's using this energy
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to think about what he has to do to get himself going.
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18:17
And then, that energy is sort of spreading
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throughout his thought areas.
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18:22
He's not thinking about his family now, and he's getting himself motivated.
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This is the posterior part, where his muscles are going to be moving,
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and he's going to be pacing himself.
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His heart and lungs are going to pick up speed.
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So this is what I can speculate might have been going on
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had we been able to do a SPECT scan on Beck
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during this survival epic.
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So here I am taking care of Beck at 21,000 feet,
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and I felt what I was doing was completely trivial
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compared to what he had done for himself.
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It just shows you what the power of the mind can do.
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He was critically ill, there were other critically ill patients;
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luckily, we were able to get a helicopter
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19:00
in to rescue these guys.
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A helicopter came in at 21,000 feet
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and carried out the highest helicopter rescue in history.
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It was able to land on the ice, take away Beck
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and the other survivors, one by one,
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and get them off to Kathmandu in a clinic
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before we even got back to base camp.
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This is a scene at base camp,
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at one of the camps
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where some of the climbers were lost.
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And we had a memorial service there
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a few days later.
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These are Serphas lighting juniper branches.
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They believe juniper smoke is holy.
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And the climbers stood around on the high rocks
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and spoke of the climbers who were lost
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up near the summit,
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turning to the mountain, actually, to talk to them directly.
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There were five climbers lost here.
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This was Scott Fischer,
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Rob Hall,
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Andy Harris,
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Doug Hansen
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and Yasuko Namba.
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And one more climber
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should have died that day, but didn't,
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and that's Beck Weathers.
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He was able to survive
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because he was able to generate that incredible willpower,
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he was able to use all the power of his mind
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to save himself.
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These are Tibetan prayer flags.
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These Sherpas believe that
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if you write prayers on these flags,
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the message will be carried up to the gods,
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and that year, Beck's message was answered.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)
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About this website

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