![\"everest_2008_0542\"](\"http:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/everest_2008_05421.jpg\")
Twice while I was on an expedition a team member died. The guide company never mentioned it publicly. Were they correct? Let’s look at this in detail as it happens more than you know and there are two sides to this argument.<\/p>\nTwice while I was on an expedition a team member died. The guide company never mentioned it publicly. Were they correct? Let’s look at this in detail as it happens more than you know and there are two sides to this argument.<\/p>\n
Every climber who joins a guided expedition signs a contract with words to the effect that removes the guide from any responsibility if death or injury occurs. Some even add that the member will not speak to the press or blog from the mountain without the guides review and\/or permission.<\/p>\n
Most everyone signs this without thought as they are there to climb, hospital<\/a> not to be a reporter.<\/p>\n
But when one of their teammates die, the fine print comes into focus. Can they tell their families? How about their friends. What about after the climb.\u00a0 Did they really agree to be censored?<\/p>\n
Most important to climbers is why their guide never talked about the death. I fully understand that we live in a world of lawyers and people ing money when money is not due. But isn’t there a way to be transparent without being exposed to a lawsuit? Perhaps not.<\/p>\n
Guides will defend their silence saying it is no one’s business other than the family. The family makes the decision if the death of their loved one is made public.<\/p>\n
The cynical will say the guides are trying to protect their reputation and manage any bad news to protect their reputation even if they are not to blame.<\/p>\n
Today with everyone having a cell phone, <\/a> sat phone and computers, word spreads fast throughout the world when an incident occurs. However, the first reports always contain incorrect information. Let me emphasize this – in my experience almost every first report of a serious incident has wrong information all the way from the number of people involved, to the names, team, location and cause of death or severity of injury.<\/p>\n
Information on the mountain is through word of mouth. So you have language and cultural issues. Usually there were only a few people near the incident so the majority of information is second hand at , more likely tenth hand.<\/p>\n
Climbers desperate for information to use for their own safety are eager to hear the news. And it is inevitable they tell someone back home who tells someone else and on and on. Finally, there are some climbers who view themselves as a reporter and post the information on their website, based on these inaccuracies. It is no wonder the guide companies are hesitant to get involved.<\/p>\n
But asking the teammates not to talk puts them in a bind with family back home wondering what happened and if their loved one is also in danger.<\/p>\n
And future members wonder if the guide was not transparent about a death, what else are they hiding.<\/p>\n
In my two cases, as a teammate, I was devastated. When asked not to talk about the death, I felt shut down. The guides didn’t want to talk about it and my teammates spoke in whispers. Our teams carried on but there was a cloud over the expedition.\u00a0 A simple ceremony would have brought acknowledgment and closure for many of us. We did make calls home to family at some point before the news became public through other sources. In both cases, the guides were not at fault.<\/p>\n
The normal protocol when a death occurs is to notify the family and the officials of the country where the incident occurs. Beyond that it is up to the guide company. Some will post a short sentence stating that a death occurred, expressing condolences. Others will post a lot of details on what happened along with the condolences. But some will never mention the death, ever.<\/p>\n
What is the correct approach?<\/p>\n
I would like to hear your views.<\/p>\n
Climb On!
Alan
Memories are Everything<\/p>\n
[poll id=”12″]<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Twice while I was on an expedition a team member died. The guide company never mentioned it publicly. Were they correct? Let’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[403],"tags":[404],"class_list":["post-18133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2014-coverage","tag-everest-2014-coverage"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18133\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}