In Memorial of the Judge (Party III)

Continued

In Yading

The night

“Wake up!!! What happened with my husband!!!??!!”

It is a cold but clear morning. After the long nightmare, I finally opened my eyes. It was still dark inside the tent but I could see things around me with the weak light came from leaks of the tent. About seven or eight people was already awake and ready to get up. At the beginning, people whispered with partners about the trip arrangement of the day. Shortly, someone began to speak loudly. This further waked me up and I decided to get up to take on the clothes. It was about 7:30 AM.

Suddenly, the judge’s wife Yanlin shouted – “Wake up!!! What happened with my husband!!!?!!!” Before I realized what had happened, Yanlin continued to cry: “He is foaming at the mouth! What! I cannot feel his heart beat!!”

This suddenly brought me from the sleeping mode into reality. I jumped up and turned to look at the judge, who was sleeping directly next to me. The bad news is, what she said was true. His hands were cold – oh, no – as cold as iron. His arms were ankylotic. “Oh, my god!!” I said to myself. It was obvious that the judge was badly ill.

I searched quickly in the knowledge base in my brain, trying to find any emergency means to help the guy. But the the search returned nothing.

It was totally in a mass. I yelled at rest of the group, “Turn on the light!! turn on the light!!” Most of them obviously haven’t realized what happend. Or they might be shocked. Later I remember maybe they cannot understand what I said since I didn’t say it clearly. Fortunately, a smart girl – I cannot remember who she was, managed to find out the switch very soon and turned on the light – Thank God. The diesel oil generator had begun to work at that time.

With the light, we could further attemp our rescue. Yanlin was more experience than me. She began to push the judge’s chest hardly with her heels. I helped her to do the same thing. I reached his feet under the quilt and inside the sleeping bag. They were still warm. This gave me much encouragement. “He is alright. He is OK” I thought. Yanlin was crying and shouting but was still trying everything she knew. “Who knows what I can do beside this?” She seek for help from the rest.

“Press Renzhong!”, my GF reminded me. Yes! Exactly – I pressed his philtrum hardly — “Wake up! You must wake up!” I ordered him but there is no response. I tried even harder, and harder. But the situation wasn’t better.

About 2 minutes later, we realized he must be sent to hosipital, if there is any hope.

Yading Administration

….

The bad news in Riwa

Daocheng hostipital

Way back to Daocheng

to be continued

5 thoughts on “In Memorial of the Judge (Party III)

  1. I think it is the reponsiblity of the travel agency to provide at least one doctor who is familiar with high altitude disease with the team.Especially when the team enter into a place where there is no medical service. So the doctor could figure out who has shown serious symptom and give some preliminary treatments.

  2. My group went into Yading four days earlier then Judge and two of our members showed serious symptom of high altitude disease when we were in Chonggu Temple. At that time there were about a dozen people, all self-helping travellers, gathered around their bed and did what ever they can do.Even the monks in the temple came out to help. We are lucky to find a nurse in them and what astonished us is the vast medical equipments she brought with her.They save the life of my men.

  3. I cannot agree with you more that the travel agency holds the responsibility to take care of the team. Actually, even if a more experienced hiker can help in this situation. For example, if I am in a group the next time I go to Daocheng, I can remind everyone in the group to take care.

    Your men are so lucky. Based on http://www.princeton.edu/~oa/safety/altitude.html, it seems the only effective way is to move the person to lower altitude. They were lucky also since they shown severe symptom in day time. Sleeping will greatly increase the respiration while no body can help. I strongly suggest everyone who goes to places above 3000 meters to read the article mentioned above.

  4. I never could figure out what fascinated people about climing to high altitudes.. I do like the outdoors though.. so perhaps it would be fun.. ;)

  5. Development Emergency Medical Service in America has received the second wave, improvement of quality of service and speed of reaction WBR LeoP

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *