How loss of one life helped me save another

I am not among those sturdy ones who love to climb mountains. Donning heavy gear and clawing my way upward through snow and rocks, at a bitterly cold altitude, is not my idea of fun. Unlike the English mountaineer George Mallory, whose notion of adventure was to climb Mt Everest, “because it is there” and nobody had yet climbed it, I prefer to watch snow through my bedroom window and leave rocks to landscapers to place artistically on my front yard.So what was I doing at 9,000 feet in the Himalayas? I was arguing with an unreasonable, unrealistic, stubborn child. Except that the child was 64, well-educated, an experienced mountaineer. medium89768455For six months I have been an expatriate consul in this tiny, beautiful land, representing a country whose laws require the consul to take charge of a situation where a citizen’s life is at risk. Especially if the person is alone and has no family member to help. It is also a country where people learn from their childhood to be independent, take risks and attempt derring-do.Four months ago an American family had called me frantically from Seattle and begged me to help Brandon, a 50-ish gynaecologist who had come to the mountains for skiing and hiking, and suddenly fallen ill. The sudden move to an area of high elevation had not agreed well with him. I had Brandon swiftly transferred to a good hospital and assembled a good medical team, led by an Australian specialist.It was my first experience with what people often call ‘mountain malady,’ acute altitude sickness. Brandon had cerebral edema; fluid had built up in his brain, affecting his mental state and coordination. He tried frantically to tell us messages for his wife and children, but the words that came out were incomprehensible. Both his Australian doctor and I sat next to his bed, notebook in hand, trying to record his last wishes, but none of us could put down anything his family could understand. I understood the ferocity of the sickness and the alacrity with which it can destroy a person’s mind. When the end came, I experienced a harrowing sense of defeat.I called Brandon’s wife and tried my best to explain, but her agonised shriek still remains in my mind, an unforgettable emblem of my defeat.Now I faced another difficult situation. Ronald, in his early 60s, a robust engineer and practised mountaineer, making his third Everest expedition, was unwell at 10,100 feet. The message from his team leader, Kate, sounded desperate and I ordered a helicopter. I also asked Noreen, an expert mountaineer vacationing in the country, to join me, for I believed I would need her support. medium nocaption89768436The helicopter rose swiftly. The quick switch to high altitude promptly gave me a stinging headache; even Noreen seemed ill at ease. Time was short and we quickly had to get to work. Kate reported that Ronald had been suffering for days with headache and fatigue, and had lately turned insomniac, all tell-tale signs. When we met Ronald, he pooh poohed Kate’s concern as nervous feminine over-caution and said he had twice been at 12,000 feet without a problem. Evidently, Ronald had paid a lot of money for his travel and expedition and was reluctant to cancel the trip and go home. He also sounded covertly contemptuous of a young, female team leader.Yet, he showed clear signs of lassitude and shortness of breath. He refused to recognise that his life was on the line, but we felt it would be unwise to let him continue. I reminded him of his responsibility to his family, and Noreen did a good job of persuading him to be sensible and not ignore the danger signs Kate had cited. Our discussion continued late into the night.The next morning Ronald came to me — I knew he felt more masculine yielding to me than to Kate or Noreen — and said he agreed to come down to the plains with me. When we landed, I persuaded him to accompany me directly to the hospital — in fact, to the same Australian doctor. After an examination, the doctor said that Roland had come down just in time, for he had pulmonary edema and was at serious risk of coma and an irreversible decline. I felt my effort had not been pointless.Years have passed since then but I receive a Christmas card from Ronald every holiday season. His cards always have the beautiful picture of a snow-capped mountain. The earlier ones even included hopeful talk of a fourth Everest expedition — though not the recent ones. I consider the cards an annual reward for my resolute effort one night to bring him down from the mountain. But the bigger reward was a short note from Ronald’s wife, after his return and recovery. It said, “You saved my marriage and my husband. We are Jews and we believe what the Talmud says, ‘He who saves a life, saves all life.’”A memento to cherish.Manish Nandy focuses on the magic of human relationships, even across national frontiersThe views expressed by the author in the piece are his ownAlso by the same author:- How a daughter lost, found, and then lost her father- What leads good people to take their own life?- When I went looking for the meaning of my dreams...- What it was like issuing US visas in a poor country