원정 개요

Expes Manaslu Expedition 2008 Autumn

Challeat in his email wrote that when Blazer, Challeat, Nima Tamang and Dorchi was ready to leave C4 to summit on 4 Oct at 2 am, Goulevitch did not want to go with them as he was tired and Challeat did not see any sign of sickness on Goulevitch. Then Challeat and team left C4 leaving Gyalzen to look after Goulevitch. Gyalzen gave him oxygen and Goulevitch went back to sleep. Blazer, Challeat, Nima Tamang and Dorchi reached summit at 8:30 am, stayed on summit for 30 minutes and descended to C4 at 10:30 am. Goulevitch told Challeat that he does not want to go down and he is fine in C4. But when Challeat asked him to stand Goulevitch was not stable. Challeat said that it was sign of cerebral edema. Then the members and Sherpas brought down Goulevitch to C3 which took them 8 hours. Goulevitch was on oxygen and unconscious. Goulevitch was put in an hyperbarbic chamber in C1 and was still unconscious. The team reached BC with Goulevitch at 11:30 pm and their doctor tried to reanimate him but no use. He died at 5 am on 5 October. The team brought the dead body to Samagaon on 5th and to Kathmandu on 6th by helicopter with members.

Bibian and Polge went up to C3. They were exhausted and gave up climbing. Gallia too went up to C3. He suffered from high altitude sickness and descended to BC with Pemba. He left BC on 23 September.

Clermidy's high point was C1.

Members left Kathmandu on 9 October and the body was dispatched to France on 11 October.

Fixed rope: 200m contributed

Sherpas:
Nima Tamang 30/7/62 (15/04/2019), Kerung-1, no 8000ers
Dorchi (Dorje) Sherpa, 30/11/73, (15/08/2030), Makalu-9
Gyalzen Sherpa, 22/4/61, Yilajung, Namche-9, Dhaulagiri I X1, Cho Oyu X1, Ever X1
Pemba Sherpa, 19/05/2028, Taksindu-6 Everest X6, Cho Oyu X2, Makalu 18/5/08


Email from Ludovic Challeat - 6 Nov 2008

Regarding Manaslu:
- BC on 11th of Sept, 4800m
- C1 on 14th of Sept, 5700m
- C2 on 29th of Sept, 6400m
- C3 on 1st of Oct, 6700m
- C4 on 3rd of Oct, 7400m

- summit on 4th of Oct 8:30 am with Yves Blazer, Nima Tamang and Dorjee Sherpa
30 minutes on the top, back to C4 at 10:30 and then rescue Daniel Goulevitch
directly to BC (23:30 same day)
- Franck Gallia, Jean-Marie Bibian and Jean-Louis Polge reached C3 at 6700m
- Daniel Goulevitch reached C4 at 7400m
- Gerard Clermidy reached C1 at 5700m
- We left BC on the 6th of Oct for Samagaon. We took the helicopter
on the 7th, directly to KTM.
- Daniel Goulevitch was tired at C4 and didn't want to leave for summit
at 3 am on the 4th of Oct. I left 1 Sherpa (Galzen Sherpa) with him.
He gave Daniel oxygen so Daniel wnet back to sleep from 3 am to 7 am.
At 3 am I didn't see any sign of big pb that's why we left for summit.
- When we came back from summit at 10:30 am, Daniel didn't want to go
(he told me he was fine at C4). When I pushed him to stand up, I saw
he was not able to unclimb the steepest part between C4 and C3 (loose
of his balance). That was sign of cerebral edema.
I left him with oxygen and we rescued him down with the Sherpas. It
took us 8 hours to reach C3, 6700m. At this point, even with the
oxygen, Daniel was unconscious. We took him down to C1 and put him in
an hyperbaric chamber (still unconscious). We reached BC at 23:30 on
the 4th of Oct and tried to reanimate him until 5 am on the 5th of Oct
with the help of our doctor. He finally died at 5 am.
We took the body down to Samagaon on the 5th and on the 6th he went
to Kathmandu by helicopter and then back to France.


Email from Jeremie Goulevitch - 5 May 2009

I am the son of one of the last dead alpinist last autumn (2008) on Manaslu, Nepal. You have written that my father died at 7400m. Maybe I do not understand the meaning of this precision into brackets, but I want to explain you that:

The first symptom of what we call in French "Mal Aigu des Montagnes" and more particularly of a "oedeme cerebral" happended 27 hours before is death at C4, 8400m. Despite is withdrawal, the other members of the commercial expedition underestimated its health level, decided to let him at this camp and to continue to the summit. Because my father could not walk by himself and could not take any good decisions they tried to save him after there return (time was unfortunately up!) at C4 and succeeded to return him to the base camp situated at 4800m, despite he unconscious since C3, 6800m.

He died at the base camp, around 4800m, and not at 7400m.

I have decided to give you these extra-information in order to denounce all the errors made by the expedition leader, Ludovic Challeat.

He actually decided to continue to the summit while my father had symptoms of "MAM" and ordered him to stay at C4, 7400m. He ordered to let the "caisson hyperbare" (the box used in case of problems due to altitude to make a artificial pressure under the real one) at the base camp during their return with my father however unconscious.


Reply to email from Daniel Goulevitch - 4 May 2009

Dear Mr Goulevitch,

When we record altitudes of death, we are actually recording the altitude at which the event that caused the death took place. In this case, that was at C4 (at 7400m, not 8400m since Manaslu is only 8163m high) where your father first exhibited his symptoms of cerebral edema.

The database is designed in part to facilitate research into deaths in the Himalaya. Most researchers are more interested in situation that caused the death, rather than the true altitude of death if that occurred at a later time. For example, if a climber is injured in a fall at 8000m, and then is carried down to base camp at 4500m where he subsequently dies, we would record the altitude as 8000m. Several years ago we had a case where a Sherpa became sick high on Everest, was carried down to base camp, and evacuated to a hospital in Kathmandu where he died three weeks later. We still recorded the death using the date and altitude of the original event.

Regards,
Richard Salisbury