SummitClimb Radio interview of Lincon Hall by RNW — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00There aren't many things tougher than
2. 0:02climbing Mount Everest. And that's
3. 0:04because it's not only the world's
4. 0:06tallest mountain. It's also one of the
5. 0:08most dangerous. Over 200 climbers have
6. 0:11lost their lives there. Once you get
7. 0:13above about 8,000 m or 26,000 ft. You
8. 0:17enter what is known as the death
9. 0:20[Music]
10. 0:23zone. In that environment, things can go
11. 0:26wrong in all sorts of ways. Even when
12. 0:28you're using oxygen, your mental
13. 0:30capacities uh are weakened at those
14. 0:33altitudes. And there was an aura of
15. 0:36death. And I've never really encountered
16. 0:38that. I've been on mountains where
17. 0:39people have died, but there was nothing
18. 0:41like
19. 0:42this. That's Lincoln Hall. He first
20. 0:45attempted to climb Mount Everest in the
21. 0:47mid 1980s. The route was new and
22. 0:50dangerous, but he and his team attempted
23. 0:52it without oxygen. It was too rough. So
24. 0:55he turned back just a couple of hundred
25. 0:56meters from the summit. Other members of
26. 0:58the team did summit, but they lost some
27. 1:00of their fingers. 20 years later in
28. 1:032006, he tried again. This time he made
29. 1:06it, and he loved it, but disaster struck
30. 1:08on the way down. Fluid built up in
31. 1:10Lincoln's skull and put pressure on his
32. 1:12brain and spinal cord. I went crazy. I
33. 1:15went delirious. I remember descending
34. 1:18the the first part of the ABS sale and
35. 1:21the next thing I knew I was in
36. 1:22Queensland
37. 1:24uh which is obviously a long way from
38. 1:25Everest. At 8,700 meters you were
39. 1:28hallucinating you were in Queensland,
40. 1:29Australia. Yes. I suddenly realized I
41. 1:32had to go down. I went down too quickly
42. 1:33and I got a huge fright. Suddenly the
43. 1:36there you know it was a big sort of dose
44. 1:38of um adrenaline and I felt really
45. 1:41frightened and I just didn't want to be
46. 1:43there. But that was okay because in the
47. 1:46next instance I wasn't there. Where I
48. 1:50was was actually 10 m behind me and 2 m
49. 1:54higher up and I could see the
50. 1:56distinctive back of my down suit that I
51. 1:59was wearing. You couldn't see that view.
52. 2:01You'd have to be out there on a big
53. 2:02crane or something. So you were having
54. 2:04an out-of body experience. Yes, I was.
55. 2:06Yes. And then everything just sort of
56. 2:08went quiet, but I could still see the
57. 2:11mountains in the beautiful sort of sun,
58. 2:13the soft colors of the snow in the sun,
59. 2:15you know, sort of orange going into
60. 2:18pink. And normally when you see that in
61. 2:20the mountain, you think you get really
62. 2:22worried because you just want to get out
63. 2:23of there because you're going to be out
64. 2:24there at night and that's a very
65. 2:25dangerous place to be. And um you still
66. 2:28have two sharpers with you though,
67. 2:29right? Yes, that's true. But what
68. 2:32happens at 8,600 m if you is that you've
69. 2:35got 30% of the oxygen that you have at
70. 2:38sea level. It's like trying to lift
71. 2:40someone from there. Uh it's like lifting
72. 2:43three people. But did you have oxygen?
73. 2:46No. No. We'd run out of oxygen. All of
74. 2:48you? Uh yeah. Lincoln was hallucinating
75. 2:51and he'd also simply run out of juice.
76. 2:54His sherper guides were told over the
77. 2:55radio by the team leader to leave
78. 2:57Lincoln behind. The fact was they
79. 3:00thought he was dead. He'd had no vital
80. 3:03signs for over 2 hours. The team leader
81. 3:05even contacted his wife and told her
82. 3:07that Lincoln had died on the mountain. I
83. 3:10was no longer breathing. I had no pulse.
84. 3:13And one of them poked me in the eye. And
85. 3:16um Whoa, hold on. Let me just stop you
86. 3:18there. You stopped breathing and you had
87. 3:22no pulse. Well, yes. This is this is
88. 3:25what I've been told. Lincoln, you were
89. 3:27dead. Yeah. Well, death
90. 3:34happens. Why am I
91. 3:36laughing? So, what I believe happened
92. 3:39was that there was obviously there was a
93. 3:41spark of life in me, but at such a deep
94. 3:44level that it was not perceivable for
95. 3:48some strange reason. In this case,
96. 3:50rather than the spark going out, the
97. 3:52flame drew grew stronger.
98. 3:54[Music]
99. 4:02What what was your first thought when
100. 4:03you realized that you had been left for
101. 4:05dead? Well, I wasn't surprised because
102. 4:08uh it made a lot of sense really. I
103. 4:11thought I'd actually had three nights
104. 4:13out, not not one night because I
105. 4:16remember waking up in three different
106. 4:18mornings, but obviously it was the same
107. 4:20day, but I was taking it as three
108. 4:23different days, three different
109. 4:24awakenings.
110. 4:26You didn't feel abandoned at all? No, I
111. 4:28didn't. And in But you see the thing is
112. 4:29you have to remember how I also had
113. 4:31learned many years ago that never giving
114. 4:34up is obvious is always the best option
115. 4:36in the mountains cuz um you got nothing
116. 4:37else to do and uh you know you might be
117. 4:40lucky and get down. So that was the
118. 4:41attitude I had. What got you through the
119. 4:44night? Because you had no oxygen. It
120. 4:46obviously gets a lot colder up there.
121. 4:48How did you survive the night? Well,
122. 4:50what happened in the middle of the night
123. 4:52there somewhere these hallucinations
124. 4:55gave way to actually the real thing.
125. 4:57When I came to I was sitting
126. 4:59cross-legged, my fingers were frozen. No
127. 5:02one else was around. Um, I realized that
128. 5:05this was where Lincoln Hall was going to
129. 5:07die. And then
130. 5:09directly after that thought was the
131. 5:11thought that I could not die. I could
132. 5:13not let myself die. I would have to stay
133. 5:15alive because I have to get back to my
134. 5:17family because this is the time for me
135. 5:19never to give up. I was just trying to
136. 5:22get through the night just trying to to
137. 5:24stay awake until the morning. How did
138. 5:25you get down the mountain in the end?
139. 5:27They were stunned to find me alive. This
140. 5:29was another team that was coming up the
141. 5:31mountain. They'd been told that you were
142. 5:33there, but they'd also been told that
143. 5:34you were dead. Yes, that's right. So,
144. 5:37what happened was uh immediately they
145. 5:38went into rescue mode. They didn't even
146. 5:40talk about it. They just went straight
147. 5:42into into that situation. To answer your
148. 5:44question is how did I get down? Well, I
149. 5:46had an oxygen bottle and I had the the
150. 5:49determination to come back to my family
151. 5:52and that was the hardest day of the
152. 5:53whole expedition. I mean, the night was
153. 5:55just just a totally unbelievable thing,
154. 5:57but I was alert enough on the descent to
155. 6:01just feel the pain of every
156. 6:05[Music]
157. 6:08step. When I got off the mountain, the
158. 6:11lead sherper of our expedition said that
159. 6:14everybody goes crazy up there. It's just
160. 6:16a matter of how crazy they go. And
161. 6:18that's because of the the shortage of
162. 6:19oxygen and the dehydration and the and
163. 6:22just the whole horror of the whole
164. 6:24thing. Have there been any physical
165. 6:26effects as a result of your experience?
166. 6:28Yeah, I've lost a whole toe to
167. 6:30frostbite. My fingers are half as long
168. 6:32as they used to be. There was a bit of
169. 6:34um brain damage there, but it's
170. 6:36something I can manage, I guess. The
171. 6:39whole recovery has taken probably over 2
172. 6:42years. So there's no regrets or fears as
173. 6:45a result of your experience. Well,
174. 6:47there's no point in regrets and there's
175. 6:49no point in fears. Well, fears actually
176. 6:50are useful, but the fears are all over
177. 6:52now. Was it worth it? Uh, yes. Yes. Yes,
178. 6:57it was worth it. Worth it. The summit
179. 6:59itself was was great, but it's the love
180. 7:02and the insight and the the wonderful
181. 7:06nature of humanity when it's on a good
182. 7:08run. And that's what this whole journey
183. 7:10has been. People who've uh who've helped
184. 7:13and and have shown me what a what a
185. 7:16great world it can be. Would you do it
186. 7:18again? No, I wouldn't go there. And I
187. 7:21wouldn't put my family through it again
188. 7:23either. Once is enough. Once is more
189. 7:25than enough.
190. 7:29[Music]
191. 7:32Lincoln Hall's book is called Dead
192. 7:34Lucky. You can find a link to it on our
193. 7:36site
194. 7:38tsw.org tiswe.org. born.