Medical Miracle on Everest

TED talk - Ken Kamler: Medical Miracle on Everest

Rating: ****

This TED talk was about the worst disaster in history that occurred during a climb on Mount Everest. The story is told by Ken Kamler, who was the only doctor on the mountain during the climb, it’s about how one man, Beck, survived near the peak of Mt.Everest for roughly 36 hours buried in the snow.

The Ted talk is about how during the climb to the peak from the 4^th camp it had become extremely windy on the peak of Mount Everest causing the people who’d been climbing it to become disoriented, weak to the point where they couldn’t move, and helpless because no one could go up to assist them. Every man was for himself. Ken Kamler and his team were confused to as where people were because people with radios were telling them conflicted stories so they didn’t really know the condition of everyone though they knew some people had died, one of them being Beck. While Ken was helping tend to peoples frostbites, and injures they saw Beck come into the tent and he ask where he should sit to be tended to. Beck had extreme frost bite. Apparently Beck wasn’t dead when some of the climber passed him and deemed him so. He just couldn’t move or respond in anyway because he was in such a severe stage of Hyperthermia. While Beck was laying on Mount Everest for roughly 36 hours he was thinking about his family and that motivated him so much that he got the will power to get up and walk to the camp that Ken and the others were at. They got a helicopter to land at their camp and fly Beck and the other survivors to the hospital.

I gave this story four stars because it was a little confusing but overall a great and inspiring story on how powerful the human mind can be if you set your sights on something. Beck was in an irreversible stage of Hypothermia but he managed to get up and walk to camp. It is sad that 5 people did die during that climb to the peak.

Kamler, Ken. “Medical miracle on Everest.” TED talks. Ted.com. Online. January 19^th, 2012. 

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