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darod
Big Wall climber
South Side Billburg
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Feb 26, 2009 - 11:05pm PT
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Rokjoke, I'm too sick of your bullsh#t, you're a moron. This has NOT been a productive thread as you'd like to think. Get off your high horse. You couldn't carry your own ass at that altitude in those conditions. In all your years in the mountains you haven't learn the most basic of lessons: humility.
Please, just shut up.
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darod
Big Wall climber
South Side Billburg
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Feb 27, 2009 - 10:25am PT
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Go away you loser...please!!!!!!
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rescue76
Trad climber
colorado springs
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Feb 27, 2009 - 11:12am PT
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RJ, please wear ID from now on. There are plenty of SAR members in this forum who will cheerily choose to un-volunteer if they encounter you in need.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Feb 27, 2009 - 11:37am PT
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Come on Rox, it's gone beyond a discussion.
When you get so invested in an opinion, standing behind it becomes a matter of keeping your identity and validity intact.
It shouldn't be about that, but it's come to that. You've carved out your position and defend it like your own life.
Seems funny that you would mock the severity of the conditions, the difficulty of the route, and the risks involved? Why no discussion about why a guide (and his clients) needed a rescue off a simple walk up?
It's obviously risky. People were already dead. Add a rush in the middle of the night and it not a piece if cake. If it were, the heros would have got to fulfill their mission.
Hard to believe the initial report about expecting a body recovery. Why bother in a storm, and was this expectation before or after rescuing the other 3?
PEace
Karl
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rescue76
Trad climber
colorado springs
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Feb 27, 2009 - 11:48am PT
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mr baba (i remember you and DMT from rec.climbing in the mid 90s!)
as a rescue professional, who happens to be a volunteer as well, I was also puzzled about the "expected body recovery" and the quick ascent.
I wasnt there, and dont know details. When our team is notified, prior to a response, or during a response(when hasty team arrives and confirms MRA code 4) - the response tempo and urgency gets dropped gears rapidly. Almost to a walk. The inherent risk involved in ANY mountain rescue, including response, dictates that at any opportunity, we need to be deliberate and careful. Rushing to get to a body doesnt make sense.
We currently have bodies on at least one mountain in S colorado. We tried to get to them once, but weather and avvy danger turned us around. Subsequent attempts were also cancelled for the same reason. Ive never known rescue members to want to push the limits for someone we thought(intel is always sketchy, but we do the best we can), or knew was dead.
be careful out there
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tom woods
Gym climber
Bishop, CA
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Feb 27, 2009 - 01:32pm PT
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Rescue 76- the rush for the bodies fact never made sense. That fact came out early, when facts are most likely to be wrong, so who knows?
A lot of what we are doing on this forum is guessing. We don't know what is in the rescuers packs, we don't know their orders/plan.
We don't know their available resources.
They did muster 17 people for the rescue, not a bad number.
If they were after bodies, what were they going to do with the bodies? Carrying bodies out would require the gear that could have been used to get a victim out. Also, like you say, why go after bodies in a storm?
They did revive two with hot liquid of sorts and walk them out. Did they have a stove or was it a thermos?
They did try to improvise a way to carry/pull the victim.
Did they try to hunker down? It doesn't sound like it, but they must have considered it and decided against it for reasons unknown to us- perhaps they didn't have the gear?
Why choose up rather then down? Why not go around as some have suggested. I don't know.
Rox-, while he makes some good points, feels that a failure of character contributed to the problem, perhaps that's true, but these guys did go up there in a storm and try, so they had character.
With a good plan, and training, character doesn't matter as much. You don't need superheroes, just plain old heroes prepared and willing to do the work.
I'd love to know what the plan was on this rescue. I'd also love to hear what these guys plan to do next time. Unless they are evil bastards, they are probably just like us and want to improve their operations so this doesn't happen again.
Tom
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WBraun
climber
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Feb 27, 2009 - 01:37pm PT
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It will happen again.
Someones fate and destiny will dictate such an ending.
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tom woods
Gym climber
Bishop, CA
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Feb 27, 2009 - 04:06pm PT
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Crock- I agree completely with what you say. At this point 350 responses in, what you say is the rational response to this.
Werner's take is also true, as shown by the facts, it was this guy's time to go.
You wrote, "Our biggest weakness is with incident command. There are political issues that have prevented callouts from occurring and twice in three years almost resulted in loss of life. In each case someone acting on their own made the difference."
I'm damn curious about these instances. I have similar feelings about a few of our operations here. On one, the clusterf*#k did not effect the outcome, (the victim died before we started) the other, quite possibly saved someone's life.
Tom
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whatmeworry
Mountain climber
Pasadena, CA
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Feb 27, 2009 - 06:04pm PT
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The past few comments seem to be getting to the essence of the thread. What can we learn from the sad events on Aconcagua?
If you are in SAR long enough you'll see instances where some element of the activation chain breaks down. The current incident in Canada [url]http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jf3p4oveYts_u-KqMkDifYylFOawD96JHCJO1[/url] is a possible example.
Agency and jurisdictional politics can always be a factor. Effectively managing them can be as important as on-the-hill leadership. Part of the problem seems to stem from the fact that those responsible for SAR (in the US) often know little or nothing about it. Those that know little and want to exercise their authority to run the operation may be the worst. At least those that don't know anything usually defer to the experienced personnel and let them run things. The mix of paid and volunteer personnel often complicate things. Paid personnel often act like the volunteers don't know anything.
Sorry about a bit of thread drift....
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tom woods
Gym climber
Bishop, CA
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Feb 27, 2009 - 06:19pm PT
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Damn- that sucks too.
That looks like a mistake, for what ever reason someone didn't take the first reports seriously, and then ignored the second report as well.
At each miss, someone made the decision not to initiate a search. These people got lost in the system as well as the mountains.
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rick d
climber
tucson, az
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Feb 27, 2009 - 07:01pm PT
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Rokjox
while I appreciate your thoughts on other threads, you should at this time bow out of the argument.
rick d
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Feb 27, 2009 - 08:16pm PT
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Nice posts above.
It's pretty obvious that we don't have enough of the story and that there is also the incident command/political/back story that weighs into this.
More info should be out soon if this is the big story down south that it's reported to be. (perhaps with a lot of spin though since lawyers are obviously involved)
PEace
Karl
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Doug Buchanan
Mountain climber
Fairbanks Alaska
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Feb 27, 2009 - 10:47pm PT
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The mentioned political issues for mountain rescues have cost many lives. Several cases readily come to mind. The concept is associated with government rescue groups whose agency personnel inherently put budget enhancement tactics above any concern for accident victims. The proofs are as common as dirt, inherent to government budget process and the attitude of superiority created by government power.
Volunteer mountain rescue groups put the accident victims, their fellow climbers, above all considerations, or their group members would not have the interest in being volunteer members. It is commonly described as human nature.
As the test of time proves, it is impossible to solve the ongoing deadly political problems inherent to government rescue groups. The perpetual government lies about "better training" to solve political (budget turf) problems, fool only fools.
Wisely form your local mountain rescue groups completely outside government involvement, for you and your fellow climbers, before you become a political opportunity for a government rescue agency. "Dead bodies in National Parks make good budget excuses.", as a Park ranger stated in an court case investigation.
An Army helicopter unit commander once stated to a local volunteer rescue group member, in his helicopter during a mountain rescue mission in the Alaska Range: "If one of my guys goes down in the mountains, I'm calling you guys, not the Army." Might you be as wise?
Real mountain climbers do not need paper credentials. In contrast, all government personnel are easily fooled by their government issued paper credentials designed to fool unquestioning fools. Government functions on credentialed illusions, not performance in open market competition.
Look at the current Obama Presidential Ego Gratification Wars and the economy, both of which were tightly controlled by legions of government experts with piles of the highest titles and credentials government could fabricate. They failed, on schedule. They will always fail. They are paper illusions.
Wisely do not join the fools. You would miss the comedy.
DougBuchanan.com
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rescue76
Trad climber
colorado springs
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Feb 28, 2009 - 01:05am PT
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having been in the army, and iraq, when I have to clear buildings, I want my soldiers with me.
being on an MRA team, when we go into the backcountry, I want my soldiers to stay home. yes they are tough, but they are not trained for the wilderness.
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nicolasC
climber
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Feb 28, 2009 - 01:15pm PT
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RockJock,
I have registered just to offer you some thoughts on the hope that you will stop spouting non-sense.
On one point, you are right: the video is shocking.
It is about a man about to die. And powerless humans around him.
IMHO, we do not see the battle those 7 people went through.
we should be careful about assigning virtues or weakness to their characters.
What I see is that the rescuers are done, meaning exhausted and defeated. This guy is not yet dead, but they can not do one more thing for him. In a harsh way, the cameraman is documenting the situation. Perhaps he is one of the the official rescuers who has to report on the situation and ask instruction from the superior at the Basecamp.
What you see as lack of respect and others see as difference of culture is distantiation: the ones that are standing can no longer help that guy, because it would twist the knife further into their inability to save him. In their heads, the guy is lost. they may have put his pants back 20 times, they are no longer able to make the 21 time. You cajole, you abuse , you push, you pull you try everything to trigger a response from someone you want to save. When you are no longer able to do a meaningful thing, the only thing you can do is cry and cuss, hold the hand or curse the one that can no longer be helped.
According to some argentinian transcript, After deciding they can't move him up, 5 left and 1 rescuer stayed with him till the end. Would you have liked to see this fimed also or would you have preferred the 7 to die in an heroic attempt?
The guide probably made mistakes (starting too late for the ability of his goup (but you have to balance an early cold start with a slightly later departure, which offer you warmth with increased risk from early afternoon basd weather), not turning back, not recognizing the weather changes) and the worst mistake: getting lost on the way down.
One of his charge died from a fall in a crevasse. He spend a lot of energy trying to save her (going down and trying to extricate her probably).
He did other things quite well as he found a sheltered spot and made his group survive.
In the end, he died because of exhaustion mixed with by de-hydratation and exposure and/or HAPE.
Despite looking at some pictures of the Polish Glacier direct and the Polish Glacier ending part, you ignore the difficulty of going up with one unresponsive body up between 6 men.
You are so obviously mistaken about the effect of High Altitude, I wont even comment on that (except that you try a hypobaric chamber once to see how it feel).
There is one point of yours which has some value: counterweight hoisting (your 3-men anchor set up). Indeed, a simple pulley would have allow 2-men walking down to drag 1 up (they are factors such as friction, you know). But I doubt it would have been practical very much because it would have required rescuers to climb twice as much at that altitude)
But it is obvious that the rescue gear needed (anchors, pulley, static rope, eventually altitude) to apply that setup is NOT availale on the normal route (wich is, in good conditions, a walk -up that only 1/3 of the aspiring climbers achieve) and at that altitude rescuers do not have the mental power to jury-rig anything (do a bit of search for mental and physical testing under hypobaric situation).
There is a tent with 2 rangers on camp1 on normal route. they did not manage to reach camp 2 or if they did, I do not know. They do conduct evacuation on a very common routine(sadly).
There are medic at base camp on both normal route and polish route.
Helicopters can not do rescue mission that high, nor in this weather.
On temperatures, at that period of the year they can drop down to -25C at berlin camp with winds up to 160 km/h on top of that.
I let you compute how much the bad weather increase the effect of altitude. You can have a look at http://www.snow-forecast.com/resorts/Aconcagua/6day/mid for the current conditions.
There was a note from a person chiming on your post saying: 1st rule is stabilize, not move, blablabla, I would have set up a tent,... and a lot of bullsh#t.
Have this person been involved in an high altitude rescue or climb?
Although people who know nothing about Aconcagua are quick to point out that rescuers did not bring a tent, it is 99% probable rescuers thought that they would bring the party back to independencia or berlin which are (dilapidated) huts on the normal route, where many climbers have rested before or after climbs. Same thing for down bags or stoves. Toboggan and sleds do not make sense on the Aconcagua (scree and penitente).
The rescuers was a mixed bag of professionnals and amateurs, operating at an altitude so extreme that physical and mental cpabilities are reduced. Some of them came done from a summit attempt. They were not geared for that unusual rescue. They split and guaranteed as much as possible the survival of the rest by devoting enough people to bring them down (they did triage). they allocated more manpower to this more difficult case, and yet it as not enough.
The idea of cache at camp 2 on both side of the moutain is a good one. which happen to be already done 50% (emergency huts on normal route). but the state of Berlin, Independencia or Vallot (MontBlanc area) show how well the communal good is mis-treatd by most to be left in a poor state when needed.
Despite this death, thanks to the rescues which happened,
I do hope that there will continue to be amateurs that are willing to try and rescue fellow climbers high in the mountains.
R.I.P. Federico Campanini
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Doug Buchanan
Mountain climber
Fairbanks Alaska
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Feb 28, 2009 - 02:37pm PT
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Rescue76, and colleagues of the mountains.....
The bait was too enticing.
Having been in the Army, and Vietnam, when I was inserted with a Vietnamese infantry platoon, I wanted the Snakes (Cobra gunships) overhead.
Having organized a volunteer mountain rescue group (and climbed often in the Alaska Range in winter), when I go to the mountains, I want "trained" people to stay home. Yes, they are "trained", but trained people are trained to not think beyond their training by people who were trained to not think beyond their training, or their trainers would have thrown them out of the training, or the students would have quit when they recognized that their instructors could not think beyond the training book.
The proofs are legion and obvious to everyone but trained people. Those trained people are the reason we lost the Vietnamese war, and will lose the Iraq and Afghan wars, on schedule, etceteras. They are the reason X percent of government mountain rescues fail for "political" reasons. The National Park Service came very close to killing even one of its own off-duty climbing rangers who needed a rescue in Denali National Park. The "trained" Park mountain rescue personnel did not conduct a real rescue. "Dead bodies in National Parks make good budget excuses."
The variables of the mountain environment are not subject to human control, are deadly, and vastly beyond the ludicrously limited government training manuals. Fools who do not learn how to effectively question the rampant stupidity of government training superiors who hold the power and ego to defend against questioning that reveals the flaws of power.
Effective questions advance knowledge, and get people thrown out of government training programs.
Why do we tell climbers that the park climbing fees help pay for rescues when that is not true, we are not allowed to charge for rescues, and the money goes to the US Treasury so Obama has more money for more bombs for his Presidential Ego Gratification Wars?
When I am in the unique mountain environment, I want to be there with people who are real mountain climbers because they ask real questions of every contradiction they recognize in life, including why war veterans (and everyone) must pay stinking Park Service thugs a tax (climbing fee) for the RIGHT to walk (climb) on the public land that is already owned by the public?
And if I had not been "trained" by the Army before I started asking questions and resigned my commission, I would have asked why we were slaughtering thousands of poor Vietnamese just because they refused to kowtow to the stinking Washington DC thugs who are bankrupting the working Americans for the wealth of political insiders. So why are we slaughtering poor Iraqis and Afghans while the DemocanRepublicrat's military industrial complex insiders get rich?
If you are a climber, wisely form your local volunteer mountain rescue groups of fellow climbers, for fear of the "trained" government "teams" that might "rescue" you.
DougBuchanan.com
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tom woods
Gym climber
Bishop, CA
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Feb 28, 2009 - 03:15pm PT
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doug- agreed on this point, but better for another topic.
I would have asked why we were slaughtering thousands of poor Vietnamese just because they refused to kowtow to the stinking Washington DC thugs who are bankrupting the working Americans for the wealth of political insiders. So why are we slaughtering poor Iraqis and Afghans while the DemocanRepublicrat's military industrial complex insiders get rich?
as for training, I agree and disagree. if someone has climbing skills they developed in their own time, they can be trained up into good rock/mountain rescuers in no time.
if they have no climbing skills, the classes aren't going to make them good rock/technical rescuers, but the familiarity they gain from the training will make them useful.
you don't want them in charge, or on lead, or lead rigger but they can be used for pulling, or other assigned tasks, or an extra pair of hands.
i've taken the swiftwater rescue courses, but i'm not a boater. i'd be lousy heading up a river rescue, but i could be a throwbagger.
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tom woods
Gym climber
Bishop, CA
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Feb 28, 2009 - 03:42pm PT
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forget this particular rescue for a second. too much blame, defense and emotion. all except rox feel the guys did their best with what they had.
why couldn't some one set up a tent, fire up a stove, and crawl into a sleeping bag? people camp at the south col on everest at 26,000 feet.
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nicolasC
climber
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Feb 28, 2009 - 05:48pm PT
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why couldn't some one set up a tent, fire up a stove, and crawl into a sleeping bag? people camp at the south col on everest at 26,000 feet.
1/ because there are huts at 6340 and 5900 for emergency shelter on the normal route (independencia and berlin). if posible you would go down to 5300 to ncamp nido on the normal route
2/ if HAPE, best is to bring down as quickly as possible the victim
3/ you don't want to set up a tent on the exposed slopes of Aconcagua (winds rgularly above 70 KM/h or 100 km/h) if you can avoid it
4/ settign up a tent on the top of the direct Polish is setting it up on a 50° slope (lot of work)
5/ lqst yeqr, 2 Koreans forced to bivouac on the Polish summited at the cost of some frostbite
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