A British newspaper described today how a Maltese doctor last week went to the aid of the youngest British woman to climb Mount Everest when she fell as she descended from the world's highest peak.

Bonita Norris reached the summit on Monday but, the Observer reported, she could have died but for the efforts of the Sherpas, support team, and Maltese Dr Gregory Attard, who himself had just been to the summit with the Challenge 8000 team.

Having achieved a near-textbook ascent and in high spirits, Norris slipped while coming down the mountain, sustaining whiplash.

Unable to move, her legs quickly became frozen and she could not feel her toes – the first signs of frostbite. After several hours her Sherpa informed her support team via a radio link that her condition had become a major cause for concern and he feared she would be unable to come down from the mountain on her own. Extra Sherpas were sent up the mountain with oxygen, medical equipment, food and hot drinks as the support team farther down waited for further information.

Kenton Cool, a 36-year-old professional mountaineer who had helped Norris to the top, and Greg Attard followed, despite the pair of them having descended from the summit only hours before. Around midnight – 12 hours after Norris's ascent – they found her.

Cool said: "It was a shocking situation. She was lucid but semi-conscious. She recognised me straight away; that was amazing given how long she had been at altitude. But my initial reaction when I saw the way the Sherpas were banging her legs and giving her hot water was, 'Oh my God, she has severe frostbite'."

He feared Norris might have some sort of respiratory problem caused by being at altitude for too long. "We sat her up, stripped her top off, cut a bit from her thermals," he said. "It was medicine on the edge."

Dr Attard injected 15mgs of the steroid dexamethasone into her arm.

"I'm so glad Greg was there," Cool said. "I've injected oranges in practice but never injected somebody for real in the dark at -20C, 8,250m above sea level in the snow. It bloody well worked and got her on her feet."

The Sherpas then lowered Norris down a line of rope attached to the mountain from a section at 8,500m known as "the balcony". In the process they lost radio contact with the support team for around five hours as they descended a stretch of Everest close to the Tibetan-Chinese border.

"They had bound her up, tied her legs together and lowered her down by her climbing harness because she was unable to walk," Cool said. "This is one of the most harrowing things I've experienced, but the one good thing was the emergency procedures worked really well. The Sherpas and support team were fantastic. It was a pretty precarious situation. One simple slip and they could have all been down the line. The Sherpas were laying everything on the line to get her back down."

Cool descended the mountain to fetch a sledge to drag her down. However, by the time he had returned, the injection had kicked in and Norris was able to move, albeit slowly and supported by Cool and the Sherpas.

When Cool was able to examine Norris's toes in a tent farther down the mountain, he was relieved. "She's got some mild frostbite on two of her toes but when I first saw her I thought she was going to lose all her toes," he said. Norris was said to be in good spirits and had managed to drink a beer with some of her rescuers since returning to base camp.

See also

http://www.timesofmalta.com/life/view/20090826/the-team/gregory-attard

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/23/bonita-norris-everest-mountaineering

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