http://www.everestnews.com/everest2010/summitclimbeverestnorth05292010.htm
This report is written in an attempt to explain the tragic loss of Peter Kinloch. We only spent 6 weeks with Peter, however, during that time we were a team climbing and resting together for many days, so were able to get to know one another well. Peter seemed to be a fit young Scotsman with an interesting life of experiences. He worked for the Police in Merseyside as a member of the civilian support staff dealing with incident pattern analysis and the extraction of management information from crime and incident databases, a specialist in which he held a PhD. Peter was shortly due to take up a new post in Belgium. From what we know of Peter, a great loss has occurred with his passing, and we are extremely sorry this has happened. We wish to send our deepest condolences to Peter's family, loved ones, and family.
Peter passed away shockingly and unexpectedly on the night of 26 May in the early morning hours, after 2:00 am, at 8600 meters, while climbing down from the summit of Mount Everest.
Peter's summit day started at 10:00 pm on 24 may at camp 3 at 8300 meters. After dressing and preparing his kit, food, and water for the summit, he and the rest of the team set off for the summit at 12:00 am in the early morning hours of 25 may.
Our team went upward and passed the obstacles one surmounts in the climb of Mount Everest from the Tibet side, including first step, mushroom rock, second step, third step, final snow slope, and dihedral. On the way up the final obstacles, Peter was in good spirits, moving steadily and sure-footedly together with our team, reaching the summit at around 1:00 pm on 25 May.
Summit team leader David Obrien radioed leader Dan Mazur, who was in camp 3 at 8300 metres, at 1:18 pm on 25 May to say the team was on the summit and everyone was in fine spirits and good health. David said it was very cold and windy and it had been a long and difficult climb.
On the summit Peter was elated, cheery and bubbly. Earlier during the expedition while dining with the team, he had said that climbing Everest would be the realization of a dream he had had for 25 years. While standing atop Everest, Peter took summit photos with the team. Conditions were sunny, but extremely cold, windy, with blowing snow and some cloud.
Descending from the summit, Peter surprisingly seemed to lose his
coordination and took a few slips and stumbles. These moments of clumsiness were interspersed with normal walking. Finally, reaching the top of the second step at approximately 2pm, he asked leader David Obrien, if David would show Peter how to descend the ladders. Peter told David that he (Peter) was having difficulties seeing, then finally that he couldn't see anything at all and was blind.
Peter seemed unsurprised about his blindness and explained to David that the blindness had happened before, although never in mountain conditions. Peter was perfectly coherent at this time and calmly explained that the condition was not snow blindness as he had no pain and he recognized the blindness from a previous episode.
In camp 3, several of the team's sherpas had descended earlier in the day with other members. 3 sherpas were sent up to assist over a period of several hours: Jangbu (Junior) was sent first, then later Phurba and Gyelje.
Over many hours of slow progress helping the now blind Peter, he, David and Jangbu reached the area of "Mushroom Rock" at 8600 metres at approximately six o'clock.
Here they stopped for a rest, David gave Peter food and opened Peter's backpack to take out some of Peter's water for him to drink. The temperature was very cold with high winds. Upon examination, Peter had initial signs of frost bite on two fingers. Peter was mentally coherent as he was able to recognize the symptoms via his sense of touch and show his frostbitten fingers to David. He requested that David remove his extra large mittens out of Peter's rucksack. Throughout this event, Peter's speech and thinking seemed to remain sharp and he did not evidence any signs of HACE. His blindness seemed to be unique, and unconnected to any other illness.
The other 2 sherpas arrived soon after to help with the rescue. The 3 sherpas and David did everything they could to get Peter beyond this point for the next 8 hours to no avail (tried administering dex, high amounts of oxygen, etcetera). Tragically, they were finally forced to come down. The rescue team did everything in their power to help Peter for about 12 hours coming dangerously close to needing their own rescue and not returning themselves.
David and the other 3 sherpas arrived back in camp 3 at 5:30 in the morning with hypothermia, exhaustion, and minor frostbite.
It is with our deepest regrets that we report the passing of Peter Kinloch, who was a bright spark in our team, and he is missed very much. At this very sad moment, we send our sincere condolences, thoughts and prayers, to his family, loved ones, friends, and colleagues.
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