health & death

INJURIES – HEALTH – MEDICINES – TREATMENTS – MEMORIALS

AMS: Long known that altitude climbers suffered malaise, cyanosis, blueing of extremities, lassitude, loss of memory or sharp thinking, nausea, loss of appetite

He had lost 14 lbs even before arriving in Darjeeling. Now 2 weeks w no appetite he was withering away.

Wheeler felt bad but a little lead opium improved matters considerably.

The wind is the curse of this country…your face simply goes to bits.

Kellas was really sick. He was slowly dying but nobody was paying enough attention.  Kellas rode a yak as others walked. The others left him behind and said he seemed fine. But Kellas collapsed. Wollaston went back to find him and saw him incapacitated, shivering in the wind, his lips blue. He gave him bovril, brandy and milk and got him to camp. He seemed cheerful enough in the am and again set off w porters.

He had suffered a major heart attack from exhaustion.

“I find that I am on the point of dropping to sleep… When I seem to hold my breath and wake up gasping. Am ready enough to go to sleep but can’t quite bring it off.” (Wheeler)

Wollaston monitored physical condition of each. Raeburn out and stayed at 20000 Wheeler’s pulse was worrisome – fluctuated between 86 and 98 – others around 90

Breathing instructions by Mallory: one breath as hard and deep as possible, in and out, for each step taken with a short pause every few paces.

REPEAT FROM CONDITIONS: Only Mallory cut two slits in the top of his tent and slept through the night. Everyone else woke w “faces and hands were all a curious blue colour” (bury wrote) which Wollaston diagnosed as cyanosis of the blood, caused by oxygen deprivation.

REPEAT FROM CONDITIONS: Mallory’s attention was on Wheeler who’s legs were like stumps no feeling below the knees and his feet were raw “very nearly gone w frostbite.” For over an hour Mallory rubbed wheelers legs with whale oil bringing them back around. Wheeler credits Mallory for saving his feet and his life. Through the night Mallory stayed by Wheeler’s side – Wheeler unable to sleep -and bullock unable to sleep sat on other side at last able to “smoke a pipe w pleasure”

1922:

1922: Tom Longstaff 47yr old ornithologist and bird like in appearance – veteran mountaineer – serve as med officer in 1922 exp.   He said “I want to make one thing clear. I am the expedition’s official medical officer. I am, as a matter of fact, a qualified doctor, but I feel it is my duty now to remind you that I have never practiced in my life. I beg you in no circumstances to seek my professional advice, since it would almost certainly turn out to be wrong. I am however willing if necessary to sign a certificate of death.” 379

1922: Major Edward Felix “Teddy” Norton – had been convalescing in a Calcutta hospital w sever case of piles after reaching finals of the kadir cup. Pain of thrombotic hemorrhoids intense and debilitating in the extreme (common affliction in the Himalaya). Graduate of royal military academy woolwich.

Longstaff vomiting and diarrhea.  So, Wakefield known to the men as archdeacon would effectively take over as medical officer

Wakefield bound up Somervell’s black swollen hands (frostbite).

Strutt reported that Morris was down too – vomiting.  Wakefield took on role of medical officer.

Epidemic of influenza and diarrhea swept through the porters.

News from home was bleak. Wakefield’s wife Madge had suffered a severe infection in the mastoid cavity of her skull – potentially lethal in an era before antibiotics.

Ruth had also been gravely ill.

Then Finch fell ill w a relapse of dysentery so severe that for 5 days he could barely move from his tent couldn’t even write a note in his diary.

Norton’s ear was severely frost-bitten and swollen to 3 times its normal size.

3 of Mallory’s fingers touched by frostbite. Lassitude and nausea.

Bruce jr and Finch suffered frostbite on their feet. Finch less severe but walking hurt. They had to be put on sleds and taken down by four porters. Once ground too rough. Finch hobbled and the porters carried Bruce jr on their backs. His left foot was useless but would be fine.

Longstaff examined all – without oxygen the body is more susceptible to frostbite. Norton would have to lose part of his ear and Morshead would lose 3 fingers – amputated at the final joint.

Wakefield and Crawford thought they would attempt summit too – despite their age but then Wakefield overdosed Crawford on morphine in an attempt to get a good night’s sleep before the attack.   His medical error might have saved their lives. Neither was fit enough for that climb. (And he noted that medicine doses might be reduced at that altitude)

Mallory w frostbitten fingers and readily detectable heart murmur wasn’t fit either. Finch and Bruce jr’s feet were in bad shape. Only Somervell was fit.

 

1924:

On their way – Shebbeare sick as was gen Bruce – gen Bruce turned out to have malaria and had to evacuate (he caught it on a tiger hunt before expedition).  Got him in bed covered him w blankets and hot water bottles out of double soap dishes and dosed him w Dovers powder, aspirin and quinine. Odell remarked “he bagged his tiger, but also picked up malaria”.

Gen Bruce on stretcher carried by 6 men who changed w others when tired.

Gen Bruce had lost nearly 30lbs in a week.

Beetham down w dysentery. And Mallory suffering what they thought was appendicitis – life threatening in 1924.

Norton was deciding whether to let Beetham continue and Odell and Irvine were also not well. Mallory’s brush w appendicitis was a false alarm.  Odell and Irvine were unwell too.

Somervell – extracted tooth from Tibetan porter w an improvised pair of pincers.

Castor oil pills which had “the reverse of the expected result” (Mallory)

Odell unfit and Irvine had awful headache.

Porters’ injuries : blood cot on his brain. Frozen feet needed amputation. Severe pneumonia and bronchitis. Broken legs from falls.

One porter broke his leg but sympathy from Brits was quelled when they found he was wearing clothes he had stolen from Somervell.

Irvine appalled at how injured were treated “lying out in the cold making no attempt to keep warm or look after himself. The three porters that had carried him down from 2 took absolutely damn all notice of him. I’m afraid both his feet are lost from frost-bite”

Made stretchers out of blankets and tent-poles to carry Shamsherpun but he died on way to base camp. Shallow grave w one memorial stone.

Cobbler Manbadhur also died. His legs were dead to the hips. His feet black and putrid w rot.

Irvine down w dysentery took a heroic dose of lead and opium and managed to follow the next day

Irvine’s face – fair skin blistered by the sun wind and cold was so raw that every time he touched his face, burnt bits came off in his hands.

And w cold air the lining of the men’s throats became so raw as to make eating painful.

Chronic headaches and hacking coughs so violent that sleep was impossible.  Mallory: “bursts of coughing fit to tear one’s guts”

FROM RESCUE: One porter’s hands swollen from frost bite. He broke down and Norton took him by the shoulder like a wounded soldier at front.

AFTER BEING RESCUED:  One porter ate and then vomited immediately.

Norton – Snow blindness – his eyes had been watering – saw double then couldn’t see anything at all.  His eyes ached.  Norton stayed in tent out of sun. With sleeping bags draped over tent to keep the light out.  3 days before he recovered – compress on eyes.

On descent – Norton unaware that Somervell was in trouble, carried on down the mountain, blind… But Somervell was fighting for his life. The lining of his larynx was frozen and raw. Frostbite had scorched his airways. He couldn’t breathe. “I made one or 2 attempts to breathe but nothing happened. Finally I pressed my chest w both hands, gave one last almighty push and the obstruction came up. What a relief! Coughing up a little blood I once more breathed really freely-more freely than I had in some days.”

AT END:  All medical tested – everyone’s hearts distended. All “hors de combat”.

 

MEMORIALS

Stones gathered for a cairn and Kellas’s initials were scratched into the memorial.

1922: 7 porters died in avalanche – left the bodies where they were – made a cairn.

END 1924 – Memorial for Mallory, Irvine and porters:  Somervell and Beetham worked on the memorial cairn carving names into rocks w screwdrivers.

All climbers gathered around memorial cairn. 3ft high on square plinth. With a pyramid of small boulders rising higher than a man. And all names of dead inscribed including 1921 one 1922 seven and 1924 four. It stood in an open moraine against the backdrop of Everest, the north face.

Climbers went to Rongbuk Monastery, slipping into the prayer hall in the middle of a service.

Beetham writes: Hitherto we had felt nothing but repulsion for the lamas:  their mode of life and everything that pertained to them.  We were therefore hardly in a mood to be prepossessed.  Yet it must be admitted that that was one of the most impressive, the most moving services I, for one, have ever attended.  Perhaps it was the unexpectedness of the whole thing, and especially of the worshippers’ profound devotion.  In any case it must have been only an appeal to eye and ear, and not to the conscious mind, for we could not understand one word of what was said.  It was an instinctive acquiescence in their earnest consecration.  The building was in such darkness that at first we could see nothing, but as the eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, row upon row of lamas were revealed seated motionless as images upon the floor.  Only the unimpassioned faces of the lamas chanting the deep guttural prayers appeared, their crouching bodies, swathed in dark togas, remained unseen.  Such light as entered illuminated the faces of the idol-buddhas and filtered down between a maze of old silken banners reaching from the roof nearly to the worshippers.  The music was supplied by a large number of deep drums, cymbals and some reed instruments, and as it rose and fell the air vibrated as with an organ.  At intervals the worship ceased, and tea was brought round by little boys; then the service was resumed.