TRAGIC DEATH ON RAINIER

[Kyle]

People suffer heart attacks while doing all kinds of things- running, sleeping, shitting, driving, flying planes, having sex etc. It's almost a certainty that someone will occasionally have one while climbing, possibly aggravated by the combined effects of exertion, hypoxemia from altitude, lack of sleep, and mental stress. I recall hearing about a poor guy (he may have been a client, but I'm not sure) who died a few years ago on Rainier from an asthma attack. These incidents don't always make the news, and happen more often than you might think.

[Dru]

Do deaths while climbing from non-climbing causes ever make ANAM? Somehow it doesn't seem like other climbers will learn much from these type of accidents, unlike the ones that go LOST, EXCEEDED ABILITY, FORGOT TO WEAR HELMET, THOUGHT HE COULD CLIMB 5.9 ON STUART BECAUSE HE COULD CLIMB 5.9 IN THE GYM, MOUTH LARGER THAN BRAIN etc.

Actually, replying to "JERRY"'s original question, I dunno about climbing but I have seen people have heart attacks while hiking and I would have to say (not even having done the route either just sprayin' ) the 'climbing' on Rainier at that point is more like hiking than climbing....

[This message has been edited by Dru (edited 08-03-2001).]

[Beck]

Yes, the editors of ANAM do include nonclimbing related mountain incidents if there is relevance to the climbing community. this is probably not one they would include.

[To_The_Top]

Kyle,

The guy that died a few years ago (5) on Rainier was not a client, but was on a independant team on the Emmons at Emmons Flats. He died of a possible allergic reaction maybe to tea. He was asthmatic, which was a factor. It was not mentioned in the AAC accidents but it was in Climbing magazine "Passages".

Bill

[JERRY_SANCHEZ]

WHAT DO YOU THINK HAPPEND IN THIS SITUATION??? I CAN'T BELIEVE PEOPLE CAN HAVE HEART ATTACKS WHILE CLIMBING....

 

London magazine editor dies on Mount Rainier

August 3, 2001, 09:30 AM

ASHFORD - A prominent business magazine editor from London died on a guided ascent of Mount Rainier with his 16-year-old daughter, and park officials said a heart attack was the most likely cause.

Lawrence "Laurie" Minard, 51, succumbed about 7:30 a.m. Thursday at the 12,000-foot level, said Peter Whittaker, operations manager of Rainier Mountaineering Inc. Minard's daughter's name and hometown were being withheld. Guides tried cardiopulmonary resuscitation and other lifesaving techniques for 45 minutes, but Minard never regained consciousness, Whittaker said. The death occurred as the group of about 25 climbers and guides ascended Disappointment Cleaver, a rocky outcrop beside the Emmons Glacier and one of the steepest parts of the most popular route to the 14,411-foot summit. An autopsy in the Pierce County medical examiner's office was pending. Mount Rainier National Park officials said the suddenness of the collapse indicated a heart attack. In the last death on a climb led by RMI, a Mount Rainier National Park concessionaire, an avalanche hit a rope team on Disappointment Cleaver on June 11, 1998, and swept away Patrick Nestler, 29, of Norwalk, Conn. About 3,000 people a year pay go on RMI-led summit attempts. Minard, who worked for Forbes magazine in London and often wrote the "Sidelines" column for a companion publication, Forbes Global, rented most of the equipment he and his daughter used, and they might have been on their serious mountain climb, Whittaker said. He seemed fit and healthy days earlier in a daylong training session on the peak, and his death "really caught everybody by surprise," Whittaker said. The group's departure from an overnight stop at 10,080-foot Camp Muir was delayed two or three hours because of bad weather and began about 3 a.m., Whittaker said. About 4 1/2 hours later, Minard said he was having trouble breathing, asked to unclip from the climbing rope and sat down. A guide stayed with him while the others headed for a planned rest stop near the top of the cleaver. "Within a couple of minutes, he stopped breathing," Whittaker said. Guides halted the climb, began CPR and other emergency measures and established radio contact with a doctor as Minard's daughter and the other climbers watched. The rest of the group made their descent Thursday afternoon. Minard's daughter was met by his mother, who lives in the Seattle area. Minard, a native of Seattle, earned a bachelor's degree in economics from Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., in 1972, then studied political economy for two years at the Graduate Faculty of New York's New School for Social Research, where he worked closely with Robert Heilbroner. He joined Forbes as a researcher and reporter in 1974 and became special correspondent in Asia in 1978, European bureau chief in London in 1979 and west coast and Asia bureau chief in 1983. He was appointed assistant managing editor of Forbes in 1985, deputy managing editor in 1987 and managing editor in 1989. He was appointed editor of Forbes Global when it was launched in September 1997