Don’t leave a man behind

Mount Everest, Nepal

Today’s mountaineers are a bunch of selfish glory-seekers, Sir Edmund Hillary, the grand old man of Mount Everest, said this week. Hillary, who with his partner Tenzing Norgay made the first ascent of the world’s tallest peak in 1953, said recent reports of hikers being left to die on the slope were “horrifying.” At least 40 people, including Mark Inglis, the first double amputee to conquer the mountain, passed by ailing British climber David Sharp last week without stopping to assist him. Sharp died. Another climber, Lincoln Hall, was also left for dead but survived and made it safely down. “On my expedition,” Hillary told the New Zealand Herald, “there was no way you would have left a man under a rock to die.”

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