All The Ways Mt. Everest Can Kill You

Many dangers await those brave enough to make an attempt at the summit of Mt. Everest and Dr. Emily Johnston visits WIRED to break down each and every way trying to conquer the mountain could prove fatal.

Video Transcript

– [Dr. Emily] If you took somebody from sea level to the top of Everest, no supplemental oxygen, no support, they would be unconscious within minutes.

Everest is a very inhospitable environment.

– [Narrator] 100s of people attempt to summit Everest every year during the small once a year window that weather allows.

Not everyone makes it.

And 2023 was an especially fatal year.

[dramatic music] – So there are a number of things that can kill you on Mount Everest.

You fall into the mountain, you fall off the mountain, the mountain falls on you.

But because it’s the highest and because people like to check boxes, it’s popular.

I think with more inexperienced people, that’s a problem.

– [Narrator] And Dr. Emily Johnston knows.

She’s a mountaineering guide and a doctor trained in wilderness emergencies, particularly at altitude.

She’s summited Everest three times in each of the tallest peaks in all seven continents.

Starting at base camp, she’ll break down the physical dangers that climbers face all the way to the top.

– So this is Everest base Camp around 17,500 feet.

The molecules are twice as far apart.

You’ve already lost half of your oxygen.

So 2,500 meters, that’s when you would start to see changes.

So we’re well above that here.

So acute mountain sickness is not unusual here.

People do get high altitude pulmonary edema and high altitude cerebral edema here as well.

People also get GI problems because there are a lot of people living here.

So it’s not unusual for people to get nausea, vomiting, diarrhea.

That’s probably one of the biggest problems at base camp is just sanitation.

And a lot of people fly in and then come up the valley and get GI bugs.

So GI bugs are a big problem here.

– [Narrator] The Khumbo icefall is a constantly moving frozen river creating deep and wide crevasses.

It was also the site of a deadly avalanche that killed 16 in 2014.

– [Dr. Emily] The Khumbo icefall is a steep area of lots of broken ice, lots of crevasses and seracs.

And the biggest problem here is that ice will fall on you or you will fall on a crevasse.

It’s really difficult because there’s no place to land a helicopter ’cause you need a flat space.

You could pick somebody off with a short haul rescue, but it’s unlikely that you’re gonna do that.

– [Narrator] No matter what part of the mountain climbers are on, proper gear is essential, not just for staying warm, but for survival.

Here’s some of Emily’s essential gear bag.

– So here’s some of the standard gear that we use on Everest.

Down suit, it’s pretty warm.

Here’s some big mittens and they’re so big that you actually wear another pair of gloves underneath.

This is that harness that I wear at high altitude.

You have this thing, we call it a crab claw and it’s connected to the harness and you have crampons, you know, spikes that you put on your feet.

– [Narrator] And some gear can save your life or kill you.

– So this is my ice ax.

Pretty standard ice ax for glacier travel.

One of the ways we use the ice ax, it’s not so much…

It’s not a walking stick, it’s more to stop yourself.

So what you do is you turn over, you get in anchor position, you try to get this into the snow to slow yourself down or stop yourself.

It is a tool when it’s in control.

It is a weapon when it’s outta control.

And one of the reasons there’s no wrist loop on here is if you fall and it’s attached to you with a wrist loop and you lose control of the ax, wow, that’s not a good situation.

– [Narrator] Camp three is a 30 degree snow slope with rocky exposed ledges.

– [Dr. Emily] We go up the western Cwm to Camp two, which is about 21,000 feet, 21,500 feet.

From here we go up the Lhotse Face to Camp three which is on the Lhotse Face.

One of the big problems going from camp two to camp three is that’s a big jump at a high altitude.

And so maybe somebody who’s had a little bit of acute mount sickness, they’ve been kind of ignoring it and they’re like, “yeah, it’s just altitude.

I don’t feel that good,” high altitude pulmonary edema, high altitude cerebral edema are greatest concerns.

And they’re not easy to diagnose.

High altitude pulmonary edema particularly, it’s a continuum of brain swelling.

And this brain swelling is caused by a number of things.

One thing is when your brain gets hypoxic, it opens up the blood flow to the brain.

And the way it kills you is your brain is a walnut in a shell, right?

The shell is your skull.

If it swells, it can only go so far.

The only way to for your brain to get out of the shell is to go down through the bottom of your skull which is not compatible with life.

That’s high altitude cerebral edema, descent is the treatment of choice.

What happens sometimes though, you get a camp three, it’s super windy, it’s in a dangerous spot, you can’t go down because it’s too dangerous.

So then you have to treat them while they’re there.

We have to use a portable hyperbaric chamber called a gamow bag.

It’s airtight, so it’s tough if they’re claustrophobic or vomiting or whatever.

And then you hook the pump up and you pump it up so that the pressure inside the bag simulates being at a lower altitude from a physiologic standpoint.

And you have to pump it 10 to 20 times a minute, so that they get fresh air in there and their carbon dioxide gets expelled.

You can’t just leave somebody in one of these bags ’cause they would suffocate.

Let’s give it a try.

We’re gonna put you in it.

Perfect, that’s great.

So go ahead and lie down.

So I’m filling the bag with air right now and then I’ll overfill it.

And that is what will simulate altitude.

If you’re gonna rescue somebody, you can help lower them with the straps that are attached to the outside.

You can use them tactically.

Ta-da.

Whoa, how you doing?

– [Narrator] Camp four is the last stop before the summit.

– [Dr. Emily] This is what people call the death zone.

In the world, there are very few human habitations above 16,000 feet because you just can’t keep up.

Now all of a sudden you’re at 26,000 feet, you’re 10,000 feet above that level, and so things are breaking down.

If you cut yourself, you don’t heal very well.

If you get sick, you do not get better.

So you’re definitely in the zone where your body can’t keep up.

And on summit day, from the south call to the summit, people are driving themselves really hard.

They’re typically haven’t been eating and drinking very well.

They haven’t been sleeping well.

They’re affected by the hypoxia.

They may be hypothermic.

And so this is the most dangerous place.

One, just environmentally, the atmosphere, there’s less oxygen.

And then two, they’re tired from this whole process.

– [Narrator] Between 1921 and 2006, 56% of deaths occurred during the descent for people who climbed higher than 8,000 meters.

– Getting to the summit is optional.

Getting back down safely is mandatory.

The problem is there’s also this huge sorta catecholamine surge, people are like, “I did it.

I have achieved my goal.”

You think you’ve won the game, but you haven’t.

You have to get all the way back down.

All they’re thinking about is going home.

They’re not thinking about putting one foot in front of the other, they haven’t been eating and drinking and they come down and they can fall off.

And it is a long way.

And people make big decisions that are wrong.

Like people will come down a ridge and they’re supposed to go to the left and they’ll go to the right.

People will make poor decisions.

They’ll sit down and they won’t get back up because they’re just confused.

They just have no idea where they are.

After summiting, my biggest concern is exhaustion and dehydration.

You know, snow blindness can set in a little bit later.

UV keratitis is the fancy name for snow blindness.

It just means that your corneas are exposed to more ultraviolet radiation, then they’re accustomed to.

If you are out in this ultraviolet radiation for too long, it can get to the point where the next day it’ll feel like you have sand in your eyes and then you won’t even be able to open your eyes.

You need somebody to lead you around.

And there are a lot of places on the upper mountain where you simply can’t lead somebody around.

Particularly if you’re on above the south call, like on a summit bid and you get snow blindness when it…

If it manifests there, it’d be very difficult to rescue somebody who can’t see.

– [Narrator] Everest remains one of the safest tall ultra high altitude peaks to climb simply because of all the infrastructure.

Despite that there was an unusual amount of deaths on the mountain in 2023.

– The reason we see so many fatalities on Everest is it’s a numbers game.

If you look at the risk of dying on Everest as compared to something like Annapurna, it’s much lower on Everest.

It’s much lower on Everest than most of the other 8,000 meter peaks.

You get more people on the freeway and more people die in car accidents.

You get more people on Mount Everest and more people will die on Mount Everest.

Two is weather.

Typically, if you have a whole bunch of people going for the summit on one day, if there are fewer summit days in a season, you’re probably gonna have more problems because you are gonna have traffic jams.

There are people that are box checkers, they just wanna have climb Mount Everest and they’re so driven to be able to say that at a cocktail party in Houston that they’ll just drive themselves to do it.

So a lot of people just want to check the box, but not everybody.

It’s incredibly beautiful up there.

It’s as close as you can get to being on another planet.

The sky is this impossible blue because there’s less atmosphere.

So the higher you go, the bluer and deeper blue that you get in the sky, and when you get to the edge, it changes you.

And there is something that happens that I can’t describe, but it’s very seductive.

[dramatic music]