Survival is Number One At over twenty-nine thousand feet above sea level, Mount Everest is the highest peak in the world. Since the first summit of the world's highest peak in 1953, many climbers have attempted to scale Everest. The summit is usually reached by a group of climbers led by a highly qualified guide and with the assistance of Sherpas. Although the group consists of many people, the highest peak in the world is still extremely difficult to reach and has claimed many lives. That's because climbers don't just have to climb to the height a commercial airline reaches; at the same time they also have to overcome the harsh conditions of the mountains. They have to climb in sub-zero temperatures with extremely strong winds. Added to this is the difficulty of breathing in an atmosphere with a very low oxygen content, breathing "rarefied air". Thus, many people have lost their lives trying to reach the highest peak in the world. This leads to the ethical dilemma of leaving a sick climber behind to continue to the summit, or stopping and helping the sick climber. The risk of helping injured climbers is too high; they risk wasting the huge amount of money they paid and the risk of dying on the mountain will increase significantly. Therefore, expeditions should not be stopped to save climbers suffering from deadly altitude sickness such as HAPE, AMS and HACE. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay HAPE or high-altitude pulmonary edema is a medical condition that causes fluid to build up in the lungs. This causes less oxygen to be supplied to the rest of the body. As a result, death is very likely to occur. Another altitude illness, HACE or high altitude cerebral edema, is the final stage of AMS, acute mountain sickness. HACE is a condition in which the brain swells due to high altitude, while AMS is a disease caused by mountaineers climbing too quickly. These conditions are very serious and often lead to death. The study also shows that high altitude sickness is one of the main causes of death on Mount Everest (Basnyat and Murdoch). Cutting off your expedition and spending too much time on Everest will increase your risk of suffering from this type of severe and fatal high altitude sickness. Helping another sick climber could potentially put them all in the same situation, suffering from high altitude sickness. Therefore, expeditions should not be interrupted to rescue climbers in danger in order to minimize the risk of suffering from high altitude sickness. Another reason why time is crucial on Everest is the unpredictability of the weather on Everest. No one can predict the outcome of nature. On Everest the weather is unpredictable and no one knows what might come their way. An example of Everest's unpredictability is when Krakauer was caught in a hurricane and said, "But in that short amount of time the storm suddenly turned into a full-blown hurricane, and visibility dropped to less than twenty feet" ( 215). Krakauer experienced the unpredictability of nature when the weather changed in a matter of moments, putting him in a dire situation. Nature is unpredictable and everything can change at any moment without anyone expecting it. One minute the weather was clear, the next minute they could be hit by a “full-blown hurricane.” Climbers' exposure to unpredictable weather conditions would be minimal if they reached the summit and descended as soon as possible. Therefore, climbers should not waste time trying to save othersclimbers in danger in order to reduce their exposure to the risk of death. The next reason why expeditions should not be interrupted is to increase the rest of the team's chances of success during the descent. The number of deaths during the descent from the summit is much higher than during the ascent. From 1921 to 2006, 56% of people who died on Everest died on the way down from the summit and only 10% died on the way up (Firth, Paul G., et al). From these data it emerges that a climber's risk of death is substantially greater during the descent from the summit than during the ascent. This is true in Krakauer's account of the 1996 Everest disaster, because all of his teammates, including Japanese climber Yasuko Namba and group leader Rob Hall, died on the descent. Even for some very experienced mountaineers like Yasuko Namba and Rob Hall, who had climbed some of the highest peaks in the world, the descent was still very difficult for them and even cost them their lives. Another person who died during his descent was a Canadian climber, Shriya Shah-Klorfine (Death on Everest). Climbers are most vulnerable during the descent, because the ascent has already consumed a huge amount of the climbers' energy and exhausted them. They have much more energy to reach the summit than to descend from the summit. These climbers have to overcome the same harsh conditions with much less energy. Therefore they must be as prepared as possible to descend from the summit. Rob Hall knew that the most important thing is to get down from the top, he said: “Any damn idiot can climb this hill, the trick is to get back down alive” (Krakauer 153). This means that the hardest part of the journey is getting off the summit alive. There is no point in reaching the summit of Everest if you are not able to tell people about your achievement. You have to reach the summit and come down alive to tell the whole world what you have achieved. Therefore, it is crucial for climbers to reserve their most precious resource, their energy, to reach the bottom of Everest safely. Leaving the incapable climbers behind would be of great benefit to the team, because it can contribute to the success of the rest of the team's descent by helping the rest of the team reserve their energy for the most important part of the journey. The final reason why expeditions should not be stopped is because the rest of the climbers have already paid a staggering amount to reach the summit. In 1996 the price to reach the summit was sixty-five thousand dollars (Krakauer 27). Now it may not seem like such a large sum but in that year sixty-five thousand dollars was the price of a Ferrari. Today the price of reaching the summit would be even higher. Considering that the climbers have already paid a huge amount, so they should get what they paid for, i.e. reaching the summit. For some climbers this may have been the second or third expedition, because the last attempt was unsuccessful. Perhaps it was because the expedition was cut short to save an endangered climber suffering from altitude sickness. Therefore, not having to reach the top again would greatly disappoint them and make them feel cheated, after paying that amount of money. One person who experienced a failed first attempt was Krakauer's teammate, Doug Hansen, who later died during his descent. Doug Hansen was a postal worker in Washington and it takes a long time for a postal worker to raise that amount of money to climb Everest. Unfortunately, after finally managing to climb Everest, he failed to reach the summit on his first attempt. It would therefore be very disappointing for him if.