1996 Mount Everest Disaster - South Col Route Events - May 11

May 11

On May 11, at 4:43 am Hall radioed down and said that he was on the South Summit (8,749 m/28,700 ft). He reported that Harris had reached the two men, but that Hansen, who had been with him since the previous afternoon, was now 'gone'. In addition, he said that Harris was missing as well. Hall was not breathing bottled oxygen because his regulator was too choked with ice.

By 9:00 am, Hall had fixed his oxygen mask, but indicated that his frostbitten hands and feet were making it difficult to traverse the fixed ropes. Later in the afternoon, he radioed to Base Camp, asking them to call his wife, Jan Arnold, on the satellite phone. During this last communication, he reassured her that he was reasonably comfortable and told her, "Sleep well, my sweetheart. Please don't worry too much." Shortly thereafter, he died, and his body was found on May 23 by mountaineers from the IMAX expedition. The bodies of Doug Hansen and Andy Harris have never been found to date.

Meanwhile, Stuart Hutchison, a client on Hall's team who turned around before the summit on May 10, launched a second search for Weathers and Namba. He found both alive but barely responsive and severely frostbitten, and in no condition to move. Making a difficult decision that they could not be saved by the hypoxic survivors at Camp IV nor evacuated in time, he left them for nature to take its course, which the other survivors soon agreed was the only choice.

However, Weathers later in the day regained consciousness and walked alone by his own power to the camp, surprising everyone there, though he was still suffering severe hypothermia and frostbite. Despite oxygen and attempts to rewarm him, Weathers was almost abandoned again the next morning, May 12, after a storm had collapsed his tent overnight and the survivors once again thought he had died; Krakauer discovered he was still conscious as the survivors in Camp IV prepared to evacuate. Despite his worsening condition, Weathers found he could still move mostly under his own power and a rescue team was mobilizing, hopeful of getting Weathers down the mountain alive. Over the next two days, Weathers was ushered down to Camp II with the assistance of eight healthy climbers from various expeditions, and would be evacuated by a daunting helicopter rescue. He would eventually recover but lose his nose, right hand, and all the fingers on his left hand due to frostbite.

The climbing Sherpas located Fischer and Gau on May 11, but Fischer's condition had deteriorated so much that they were only able to give palliative care before rescuing Gau. Boukreev made a subsequent rescue attempt, but found Fischer's frozen body at around 7 pm. Like Weathers, Gau was also evacuated by helicopter.