Should Simon Have Abseiled Into the Crevasse?

[scrambled_legs]

With a clear head thats pretty easy to agree with.

Simon's head must have been swimming. I mean he just cut the rope to his climbing partner while his partner was hanging in thin air.

 

Think of the Gravity of this action!!

 

He would have guilt pooring through his head along with questions and blame on himself etc., etc.

 

I can't fault the guy one bit.

 

Think of it this way... you're cruising downtown and you make a quick right turn just as your best friend steps out in front of you. He bounces off the hood and in to an oncoming semi's grill. You're 99.9% sure that you just toasted your buddy. How many would have the guts to go look?

 

Now imagine combining that with guilt over having known that you were going to have to do this. Add the fact that you chose to do it to save your own life. Add in the factor that you are seriously screwed up, physically, mentally and emotionally from the climb, storm, lack of food, oxygen, etc. Then increase the mess by also adding the fact that you would be seriously risking your own life in walking over to see your buddy that you just killed.

 

Now how many of us would have abseiled into the crevasse??

[scrambled_legs]

You know what I'm actually offended by those of you who are going into technical ways that Simon shoulda magically trounced across a glacier field in a whiteout to extract a battered expectedly dead partner from a deep crevace with one screw and a shred of rope.

 

I think its good to discuss rescue techniques but leave the blame out of it. If my partner gets toasted on a route and I try to save him by risking my own life. But during the rescue something goes terribly wrong and I truly believe that my partner is dead strongly enough to begin burning his clothes. Then when I come home and have some people posting clips that I failed my partner while they sit at home behind their computer desk, I'd be pretty pissed.

 

The fact that Simon did as much as he did should make him someone to look up to. Give the guy a break... truly consider what he went through before you say he failed his partner. I think I'd rather be Joe any day of the week.

[griz]

Think of it this way... you're cruising downtown and you make a quick right turn just as your best friend steps out in front of you. He bounces off the hood and in to an oncoming semi's grill. You're 99.9% sure that you just toasted your buddy. How many would have the guts to go look?

Wow, now that's a new level of weak. You hit your friend with a car and you are too scared to administer first aid or even look? Nice,dude... ...and that's where we differ because my first instinct would be to try and help him... even if it was a lost cause.

BTW, did I say anywhere that yates should have rapelled into the crevasse? No.

[scrambled_legs]

I didn't post that I wouldn't look, I simply asked how many of us would at that point? I would like to believe I would have gone and helped Joe and I tell myself that I would, but I also have doubts as to what I would do if was really there.

 

Funny thing is that I did hit a pedestrian before. He jumped out in front of me in the middle of the street while I was cruising at 60km/hr. Smashed through my windshield and flew 20 feet in the air in front of the car. Everything went slow motion as it happend, we even locked eyes for a second. Then as the car came skidding to a stop with him lying there motionless on the ground, the gravity of it hit me. This feeling of what just happend washed over me and what needed to be done was already running through my mind. I immediately jumped from the car and helped him but am still haunted by those steps toward the body as the pool of blood slowly grew larger. Thankfully in this case I was able to help the dude and he lived to tell all his homeless friends how hot the nurses are in T.O.

 

I wanted to get people thinking about what those steps towards a motionless body are like though. I didn't know the guy... had no personal connection... didn't think he was dead... knew that there was nothing that I could've done... didn't think about "cutting a rope" before I hit him... didn't have time to think about any of this either. Yet, I will never forget the enormous amount of guilt and pain that I felt for the guy as I walked towards him and held his bloody head in my hands. He was a street person but I didn't care. The police and ambulance attendents scolded me for touching him without wearing gloves but I didn't care. I felt responsible and I felt dead to the world.

 

Imagine Simon having all the time in the world to reflect on what he had just did... how much anguish he went... or is still going through, thinking about what he did.

 

Once I left that accident scene I didn't want to go back. Simon was probably so overwhelmed at that point that he just couldn't deal with it. I mean Joe didn't just fall... Simon cut the rope!!!! Simon felt without a doubt in his mind that he killed his partner. He burnt his clothes!!

 

The fact that Joe wasn't dead has probably caused him to go through more hell, in a sense, emotionally. He felt that there was nothing more to be done and so he left. Now that he knows that there could have been something else done, he probably struggles with himself day after day. This is probably why Joe publicly defends him. He knows the crap that the community is spewing towards what he shoulda done must really tear at him.

 

I had several witnesses to the accident tell me that there was nothing I could've done and congratulated me on the way I handled things. I still blamed myself

[scrambled_legs]

Oh and Griz... take it easy... I wasn't aiming that one at you just the combined tone towards Simon in many of the Touching the Void posts. That one post about throwing blame is bang on. Wait till it happens to you before you become so sure of what you really can and would do.