One of the most bizarre
mountain
rescue stories we've seen for a good while is doing the
rounds of the web sites after
six
martial arts enthusiasts abandoned a man in a wheelchair
during an ascent of
Snowdon...
According to the
BBC,
the martial artists from Coventry were taking part in a fundraising
record attempt using the Llanberis path to the summit of Wales' highest
mountain, but after leaving the wheelchair-bound 31-year-old to wait
while they summited, decided they were too tired to carry him down and
called out the local Llanberis Mountain Rescue Team.
Some 15 members of the team helped the man backk to Llanberis using the
Snowdon mountain railway - right, pic by Hamish Fenton - and he was,
reportedly found to be suffering from mild exposure.
The
Times
quotes a climber who witnessed the rescue as saying:
“The poor bloke was sitting there in his wheelchair for quite a while.
It was a bit mean of them to leave him there while they carried on to
the top. But other climbers went over to talk to him. He was just
getting very cold.”
The paper also quotes Ian Henderson of Llanberis MRT as saying: This
party were poorly prepared and felt it was OK to carry on to the summit
rather than turn around and get him down the mountain,” he said.
“At what point did they think ’it’s OK we’ll get the rescue team to
push him down?’
Clearly having a black belt in karate doesn't have much bearing on
common sense then. And the story raises all the classic issues about
charity mountain outings as well.
Alan Pitkeathly
