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Assault on the Summit
by Liesl Clark, Broughton Coburn, Audrey Salkeld, and Charlie Houston
"I am nothing more than a single narrow gasping lung, floating over the mists
and the summits."—Reinhold Messner
Getting the News from Everest
Letters from the mountain, received weeks after they were written, are now
replaced with instant communication by satellite phone. A call wakes us up
with a start in the middle of the night: bad news from Base Camp. Information
and greetings are rushed and frantic, and the connection goes dead because the
generator powering the satellite phone gives out. We call back and finally get
through. Members of Base Camp put the phone up to a radio so we can talk with
the team at Camp 3—direct communication with an exhausted voice at 24,000
feet on Everest: "We're all fine and will return to Base Camp in 2 days—over," says David.
The MacGillivray-Freeman IMAX/IWERKS Science Expedition on Everest has turned
back to Base Camp after taking part in a massive rescue effort on the mountain.
Eight climbers are now reported dead and several more are suffering from severe
frost bite and hypoxia, which is lack of oxygen. Rather than reporting on the
rescue effort, which you can read about in depth in our Newsflashes, we
will explore the physiological effects of altitude on the body to shed some
light on the factors that may have contributed to the recent deaths on
Everest.
Continue
Photos: (1-2) courtesy Robert Schauer.
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© | Updated November 2000
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