Dan Mazur SummitClimb Mount Everest Rescue of Lincoln Hall — Transcript

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1. 0:00that's where i was
2. 0:04lincoln's lack begins to change whatever
3. 0:07way you look at it it was a very strange
4. 0:09set of circumstances
5. 0:12i've been left for dead and yet at one
6. 0:15level my mind was connecting
7. 0:18there's all this stuff still happening
8. 0:19in my head and it's all very vivid
9. 0:23determined not to die lincoln's
10. 0:25subconscious begins to fight back
11. 0:28he starts to hallucinate
12. 0:32it was a case of me rejecting death
13. 0:36and insisting on life and the way that
14. 0:38was expressed to me
15. 0:40was i was wearing a grey cloak and that
16. 0:43cloak was
17. 0:44like a cloak the cloak of death that was
18. 0:46welcoming me
19. 0:47and i was wearing it and
20. 0:50and i knew i had to accept the cold and
21. 0:53whatever else
22. 0:54was going to happen if i put that cloak
23. 0:57away
24. 0:59and then i felt like then i felt like a
25. 1:02pilgrim i suppose someone who
26. 1:04who knows where they've got to go who's
27. 1:07doesn't know what the journey is going
28. 1:08to be but knows that's his only choice
29. 1:11in life
30. 1:15[Music]
31. 1:17i'm not arrogant enough to think that
32. 1:19i'm so special that i can
33. 1:22just decide i'm not going to die and not
34. 1:24die
35. 1:26i had to believe that i wasn't going to
36. 1:28die because otherwise i would not have
37. 1:29been able to
38. 1:30face that impossible set of
39. 1:32circumstances
40. 1:34the hypothermia the hypoxia the
41. 1:36exhaustion
42. 1:37the dehydration the cerebral edema
43. 1:40it was a death sentence and i had to
44. 1:43utilize
45. 1:44everything that i'd learned over three
46. 1:45decades of mountaineering
47. 1:54drawing on years of buddhist meditation
48. 1:57and yogic breathing techniques
49. 1:59lincoln is able to remain conscious in
50. 2:02spite of hypothermia
51. 2:09soon the sun came and there was this
52. 2:11amazing
53. 2:13life-giving warmth
54. 2:18after 30 hours in the death zone at
55. 2:20minus 25 degrees
56. 2:23lincoln hall should really be dead
57. 2:26hallucinating wildly he is in the final
58. 2:29dangerous stages of hypothermia
59. 2:31and is still a long way from safety but
60. 2:34his lucky streak continues
61. 2:36there was so much good fortune the most
62. 2:38dramatic was the appearance of
63. 2:40a team of four climbers who were heading
64. 2:42for the summit
65. 2:43[Music]
66. 2:46unlike david sharp who died 10 days
67. 2:49earlier lincoln is fully conscious
68. 2:51moving around and clearly visible to the
69. 2:54approaching mountaineers
70. 2:56climbing that morning is a team led by
71. 2:58american guide
72. 3:00dan mazur with jang bu sherpa andrew
73. 3:03brash
74. 3:03and miles osborne um i was kind of
75. 3:06staring down on my feet as you do
76. 3:08because
77. 3:09you know you're just so focused on one
78. 3:10foot in front of the other
79. 3:12and i kind of looked up and then i saw
80. 3:14this kind of yellow
81. 3:15kind of blob sitting up there on the
82. 3:17ridge and i was just completely
83. 3:19um dumbstruck i didn't know what to
84. 3:21think hey
85. 3:22what are you doing here we went up to
86. 3:24him and the first thing that he said was
87. 3:25i bet you're surprised to see me here
88. 3:27[Music]
89. 3:30and that was the thing that completely
90. 3:31threw me when miles and his party found
91. 3:34me that morning
92. 3:35they were stunned to see that i had
93. 3:38unzipped my
94. 3:39down suit and was half undressed there
95. 3:41are two possible reasons
96. 3:42one is that i was rejecting the cloak of
97. 3:45death
98. 3:46and the other is that i was in the final
99. 3:47stages of hypothermia
100. 3:49about to die up to 50 of hypothermia
101. 3:53victims are found with their clothes
102. 3:55off it's called paradoxical undressing
103. 3:58when death is imminent blood returns to
104. 4:01the extremities
105. 4:02in a rush producing the sensation of a
106. 4:04hot flush
107. 4:05i don't think it even crossed anybody's
108. 4:07mind until that point as to well would
109. 4:09we go to the summit or not
110. 4:14lincoln hope we found a climber
111. 4:18i'm saying his name's lincoln hall i was
112. 4:20behaving erratically
113. 4:22not that i was aware of it the first
114. 4:24thing they did was to secure me to a
115. 4:25rope
116. 4:26i want to get i want to get off the boat
117. 4:29at the time he seemed to think that he
118. 4:30was on a boat and the one thing that he
119. 4:32was desperately trying to do
120. 4:33frozen fingers and all was to try and
121. 4:35pull himself off the ridge there
122. 4:37to try and kind of disembark from the
123. 4:38boat which obviously wasn't the best of
124. 4:40ideas at the time because it was about a
125. 4:42ten thousand foot drop
126. 4:52down at advanced base camp kevin has had
127. 4:55a bad night
128. 4:57yesterday was a horrible day
129. 5:00we lost two very very good friends um
130. 5:03thomas in the morning
131. 5:04and then a hell of a day with lincoln
132. 5:08last night i went to bed and i'll be
133. 5:11honest i shed some tears in my tent for
134. 5:13them
135. 5:14i just couldn't believe that we lost two
136. 5:15friends on the mountain
137. 5:18today i woke up and as you can see it's
138. 5:20a beautiful day on everest
139. 5:22went out to alex and heard the news
140. 5:26that uh the lincoln is still alive
141. 5:30so alex instantly launched a rescue
142. 5:35and currently these amazing guys from
143. 5:37nepal
144. 5:38are climbing up there to hopefully bring
145. 5:41our friend down
146. 5:45miles and his colleagues stay with
147. 5:47lincoln for four hours
148. 5:49just before we saw lincoln i firmly
149. 5:52believed at that moment that there was
150. 5:53nothing that could stop us from reaching
151. 5:55the summit
152. 5:57the time spent with him has meant their
153. 5:59precious oxygen supply has depleted
154. 6:01and it's now too late in the day to
155. 6:04continue
156. 6:06after years of saving to raise the 25
157. 6:09000
158. 6:10he needed for the expedition it's all
159. 6:12over
160. 6:13for miles i knew then that in my
161. 6:15lifetime i was never ever going to get
162. 6:16to the summit
163. 6:17i took one last look took a picture and
164. 6:19then got down as fast as possible
165. 6:21i was so pissed off i can't even tell
166. 6:23you
167. 6:26i know what it's like to turn back from
168. 6:28the summit i know that
169. 6:29sort of huge burning sense of
170. 6:31disappointment
171. 6:33and i do know that miles
172. 6:36felt that as well it took me
173. 6:39uh 24 hours to get the perspective that
174. 6:43in the big picture everything had worked
175. 6:44out fine the summit missing or something
176. 6:46didn't bother me that much
177. 6:47lincoln was okay um and i got so many
178. 6:50emails from friends at home who had said
179. 6:52i don't know what i would have done if
180. 6:54i'd read that you've left this guy and
181. 6:55going on to the summit
182. 7:00base camp face cam do you receive over
183. 7:04due to a radio blackout kevin is unable
184. 7:07to transmit the good news
185. 7:10base camp base camp from abc over
186. 7:14this family believes he's dead
187. 7:17and yet the man is almost having a
188. 7:20fistfight
189. 7:21with the shepherds that are trying to
190. 7:23bring him down it's almost comical if he
191. 7:26wasn't so sad
192. 7:28base camp base camp do you receive over
193. 7:32because we all know this up here but his
194. 7:35friends down at base camp
195. 7:37uh going through hell believing their
196. 7:38friend is dead
197. 7:41and i can't tell them base camp base
198. 7:43camp do you receive over
199. 7:45it's several hours before kevin
200. 7:47eventually gets through to base camp
201. 7:49and from there the good news spreads
202. 7:51around the world
203. 7:52people in our office in sydney saying
204. 7:54they'd heard somewhere on the
205. 7:56by the internet that they certainly come
206. 7:59up your life
207. 8:01and my immediate response to that was no
208. 8:04don't go there don't clutch onto that
209. 8:05given we've just been through the trough
210. 8:07of death
211. 8:08and then until we found out for sure
212. 8:11what was going on
213. 8:18well i was just generally uh surfing the
214. 8:20net
215. 8:21someone emailed me a bunch of music
216. 8:23saying
217. 8:24stuff about my dad and it hadn't on the
218. 8:26front page
219. 8:27everest climb i found alive and had a
220. 8:30picture of dad there
221. 8:34it was stated as fact that he was alive
222. 8:39and so we we breathed heavily for a
223. 8:43while and
224. 8:44and thought we couldn't believe it
225. 8:54after 36 hours of fighting for his life
226. 8:57lincoln hall makes his momentous arrival
227. 9:00at advanced base camp
228. 9:02he is exhausted and emotionally drained
229. 9:06kevin ogilo is there to capture the
230. 9:08moment
231. 9:11where are you the bloody filmmakers
232. 9:16i mean i'm alive now i got some more
233. 9:18frost part to it to my collection
234. 9:20it's good really because my kids have
235. 9:21never seen fresh frostbite
236. 9:30you'll be so proud to have the flag
237. 9:34there
238. 9:37i almost left my children without a
239. 9:40father
240. 9:40and my wife without a husband and
241. 9:44had that happened i could not even
242. 9:47begin to think about forgiving myself
243. 9:51which was why i just had to come back
244. 9:55yeah hi there i only got the opportunity
245. 9:58to talk to barbara once i was down
246. 10:02an advanced base camp so apparently i'm
247. 10:04getting on the hatch soon
248. 10:06um lincoln's voice was so
249. 10:10unrecognizable faint croaky
250. 10:13crackly that i wasn't sure
251. 10:16it was him tell her you're well come on
252. 10:19because i'm well people are saying i'm
253. 10:20well later so i need to tell you
254. 10:22she couldn't believe it was me and what
255. 10:25i did was i said well because it's me
256. 10:26i hope you haven't started looking for
257. 10:28another husband
258. 10:30i thought well that really that really
259. 10:32is
260. 10:33that's him that's him this footage shows
261. 10:36lincoln
262. 10:36finally reaching base camp after
263. 10:40two months on everest the expedition is
264. 10:42over
265. 10:4522 years on lincoln hall has achieved
266. 10:48his dream
267. 10:50but his greatest achievement was not
268. 10:52reaching the summit
269. 10:54but getting down alive his first
270. 10:57priority is to find the sherpas who
271. 11:00helped save his life
272. 11:02i just wanted to to thank them so much
273. 11:05for for what they had done because they
274. 11:08really had risked their lives for me
275. 11:11[Music]
276. 11:12if pember or any of the other sherpas
277. 11:15had died and i survived
278. 11:17[Music]
279. 11:20would be the most dreadful outcome
280. 11:22possible
281. 11:24that would just be the worst thing i can
282. 11:26think of
283. 11:28pember was the only uh sherpa that i was
284. 11:31able
285. 11:32to see as soon as i got down
286. 11:34[Music]
287. 11:40he just kept telling me don't worry
288. 11:43you're alive don't worry it's okay
289. 11:46and uh and i think they were just so
290. 11:49happy that that what they had done
291. 11:52it saved my life
292. 11:55with the trophy of climbing everest so
293. 11:57highly prized
294. 11:59the 2006 season of death is unlikely to
295. 12:03be the last
296. 12:04lincoln hall's return from the dead on
297. 12:07everest is a miracle
298. 12:09he should have frozen to death but he
299. 12:11didn't
300. 12:12he should have died from cerebral edema
301. 12:15but he didn't
302. 12:16his survival still eludes explanation by
303. 12:20medical science
304. 12:21and it's something he's still coming to
305. 12:23terms with
306. 12:24one thing that's helped me to deal with
307. 12:26that is to is the tibetan buddhist
308. 12:29interpretation of of the nature of death
309. 12:32which is that consciousness
310. 12:34leaves the body you know in different
311. 12:37stages and there's eight of those stages
312. 12:39and it's basically a shutting down a bit
313. 12:40like you do when you get out of your
314. 12:42helicopter you turn this off and you
315. 12:43turn that off and the whirring starts to
316. 12:44go
317. 12:45quieter and quieter well i i went
318. 12:48through the
319. 12:48two of those levels i can take two of
320. 12:50those boxes in terms of
321. 12:52consciousness leaving me now the big
322. 12:54question is
323. 12:56what caused the reverse i just don't
324. 12:58[Music]
325. 13:04know
326. 13:08[Music]
327. 13:18you