Page 72 - KRH Regimental Journal 2022

70
The Regimental Journal of The King’s Royal Hussars
1000 yard stare of Capt Turner at camp One after the failed summit attempt
their advice and support, so it would be foolhardy in the extreme to ignore their wealth of knowledge.
We decided however that whilst everyone was feeling ok (this is relative after three weeks of tent life and over 6km above sea level) and conditions were ideal, that we would push on to cross the 6500m threshold. In order for the entirety of Rope Team One to achieve a new personal high.
Felling very pleased with ourselves we started to descend and as we did, clouds started rolling in ominously from the south.
(The following is from the diary of Chief Instructor WO2 QMSI Glenn Bloomer – as has sometimes been known to be the case, the author was unable to remember the events that took place).
The Summit Bid.
Our summit bid started with an all-important rest day. However, a rest day isn’t really restful above 6000m...we were pretty much confined to our tents by high winds and continual snow. The day was spent, packing, repacking, hydrating, eating, listening to audio books and occasionally ‘visiting’ the neighbours for a change of scenery.
Overnight the snow stopped, the winds were still blowing cold and hard but now was the time to put all the negative thoughts to one side and focus on getting the team to the summit.
The Expedition Leader (Capt Turner) had complained earlier in the morning of feeling unwell but after being checked over and after discussing it with the other Instructors, he felt ok to carry on.
We set off but quickly Capt Turner looked to be struggling, after another check on him and a short rest Rope Team One moved again. Then things went wrong... Capt Turner took another 10 steps, swayed and collapsed and began convulsing in the snow. He wasn’t coherent and was struggling to control his breathing. The Sherpas had emergency oxygen which we gave to him and after 5 minutes (which felt like a lot longer) Nathan’s breathing started to stabilise and he was able to communicate.
All thoughts of the summit were dismissed and instead we now had a very real and serious situation with a casualty who appeared to be suffering from severe altitude sickness. Our initial diagnosis was High Altitude Pulmonary Edema (HAPE), a life-threatening condition that could kill Nathan unless we descended quickly.
Mal, the leader of Rope Team Two, took the remainder of Team One, and his own, back to Camp 2 and prepared a tent for Nathan. Glenn and the Sherpas then carefully descended with Nathan
back to the security of Camp 2, thankfully whilst slow going it was without mishap.
By getting back to the tents at Camp 2, Glenn took stock, re- examined Nathan.
After talking through the symptoms with both Mal and Roy (over the radio at Camp 1) they quickly concluded that Nathan was actually suffering from High Altitude Cerebral Edema; a very serious condition that can kill a sufferer within 12 hours.
We knew that descending as quickly and as far as we could would give Nathan the best chance of survival. Being lower would also make helicopter rescue more viable if we needed it.
The plan was to keep Nathan on oxygen for an hour whilst we sorted the rest of the team out and then when (if) Nathan could move, Glenn would short rope him down to fixed ropes, and then down to Camp 1, nearly a kilometre below us. The rest of the team would descend ahead under the supervision of Mal. This did mean that we would need to take all of our gear in one hit, a huge load. Each part to the plan had a Sherpa to support with the rest stripping the mountain as we retreated.
With Nathan now recovered enough to move, it was time to act.
Moving slowly and carefully we inched our way down, descend- ing a mountain, with a HACE sufferer on fixed ropes, carrying huge loads was certainly not something anyone on the team had done before, especially as the snow had now softened alarm- ingly. 12 hours after the incident began the team collapsed into their tents at Camp One. The following morning, we continued to descend to Base Camp, and with that the attempt to summit Putha Hiunchuli was over for the GAUNTLET RISE team.
Conclusion
In organising this expedition, I had read a lot about great moun- tain successes, and alarmingly little on what it is like to not achieve your objective in the high mountains. Army Adventurous Training is there to challenge us and develop us; sometimes it’s inappropriately seen as jollies off skiing or generally an excuse to squander tax payers money. GAUNTLET RISE, although sadly unsuccessful in summiting, taught me and our team much about leadership and decision making. Success is all too often focused on what mountaineers’ summit. In this case I have found success in my team and in making the right decisions, to send people back, to turn round and to ultimately (hopefully) try another day.
NHJT
View across the Himalayas from the High point reached by Team One 6,550m