Climber left to die after going blind on Mt. Everest

By Hum
in Real World News

 Share

Recommended Posts

Grand Master

Hum

Posted
Posted

MOUNT EVEREST ? A climbing team was forced to leave a British man to die on Mount Everest after he went blind at the summit last week.

According to the British newspaper The Independent, Peter Kinloch, 28, suddenly went blind after just a few minutes on the roof of the world at 29,035 feet.

Kinloch's guides noticed that he seemed to lose coordination as the team was coming down the mountain. About an hour later, he reportedly admitted he could not see anything.

It took about four hours for the team leader and a Sherpa to help Kinloch descend just 1,000 feet. Eight hours and two sherpas later, the team realized that they were all in danger if they continued at the same pace. They were forced to abandon Kinloch to die in the cold.

The Independent reports Kinloch's body may never be recovered. He is the 30th person to die on the mountain in the past five years.

Retinal hemorrhages reportedly are a common complaint of mountain climbers.

source

Grand Master

spacer

Posted
Posted

What a sad and scary way to die. Mountain climbing is dangerous, I think everyone knows that. And if you're going to do it, you obviously have to be ok with putting yourself in such danger. But to have your eyes unexpectedly stop working isn't something you can anticipate.

I hope this guy didn't suffer very long. :/

Community Regular

selphj

Posted
Posted

A few weeks ago I heard a guy in person that had been up there. They know full well what they are getting into when they go. You walk past a number of dead bodies before you make it to the top, because no body is ever recovered and they stay frozen forever.

Mentor

|Rapture|

Posted
Posted

There is a short follow-up to this story on the Gawker... Must have been horrible when he realised he wasn't going to make it down and having to admit he'd gone blind.

http://gawker.com/5815087/everest-climber-discovers-missing-friend-preserved-in-ice

Grand Master

Hum

Posted
  • Author
Posted

It's more than a moment of "nice view", it's a challenge. It's not like every damn climber who died there was blind... Get your facts straight

I can think of a lot of 'challenges' that don't involve death and disability.

I don't believe in taking stupid changes with your life.

You eat your cake -- I'll eat mine.

Veteran

Twiddle

Posted
Posted

It isn't uncommon for a mountaineer to prematurely dig their own grave and leave markers. A lot of them know whether or not another will make it or not. Many dangers on a mountain, hope for the best, plan for the worst, though.

Reminds me of this music video. (Near the end)

Grand Master

neufuse Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted

you should watch some documentaries on Discovery and National Geographic, maybe then you will understand.

I've seen a bunch of documentaries about climbing Everest, and I still don't understand why people do it.. sure it's a thrill, but when you know you can die there pretty easily, just seems odd

Grand Master

webeagle12

Posted
Posted

I can think of a lot of 'challenges' that don't involve death and disability.

I don't believe in taking stupid changes with your life.

You eat your cake -- I'll eat mine.

But you can't call people fools because they decided to take and acept a channle for themsefls.

You could eat your cake at home, roof falls and you die, **** happens!!! I feel very bad for a guy especially I love taking along hikes in mountains myself.

Grand Master

DirtyLarry Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted

I wonder if he attempted to make it down still after they left him. I have to believe if I was in a similar situation, knowing I was incredibly likely to die anyway, I would ask one of them for a cell phone, get on my hands and knees, and "crawl" down so to speak. I know I am obviously over simplifying it, but my point is I think a will to live kicks in with most people, so I really do wonder what his last moments were. Just peacefully sitting there accepting the inevitable, or giving getting down on his own a try.

Mentor

|Rapture|

Posted
Posted

It's not really a case of just sitting down and accepting your fate, they tried to get him down the mountain for a good 12 hours after he told them he'd gone blind, his symptoms would probably have got worse as time passed.

He might not even have been conscious when they finally left him. Hypothermia and altitude sickness can have some bizarre effects.

Grand Master

bjoswald

Posted
Posted

I would have brought a pistol just in case of something like this happening to me. Can you imagine how scary it would be to be alone, freezing and abandoned on a mountain top? I think this is one of the few situations where suicide is a viable solution. I'd rather shoot myself or leap off the cliff rather than freeze to death!

This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Posts

    • Neowin's 2026 GNU/Linux Desktop Thread

      By Mindovermaster · Posted

      Very umm, blue?  
    • Steam Summer Sale 2026 kicks off offering weeks of PC game discounts

      By LoneWolfSL · Posted

      Steam Summer Sale 2026 kicks off offering weeks of PC game discounts by Pulasthi Ariyasinghe Every year, one of the biggest events that Valve hosts is the Steam Summer Sale. Now, the 2026 edition has just kicked off, bringing discounts for everything from the newest games and retro gems to all sorts of DLC packs. As always though, PC gaming hordes have managed to shake the servers of Steam just as the sale opened its doors, so expect the prices, store pages, and services to not show up properly for some time till the backend stabilizes. You'll find sales being present, though with minor cuts, for even relatively recently released titles this time. The front page is the place to be for anyone looking for recommendations, with it putting a spotlight on fresh games every day. However, keep in mind that the discounts themselves will not be changing and will remain static throughout the sale. Blockbusters like Clair Obscur Expedition 33, Split Fiction, Red Dead Redemption II, Battlefield 6, Dispatch, Baldur's Gate 3, Resident Evil Requiem, Anno 117, Arc Raiders, Black Ops 7, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, and much more are currently discounted. Valve has also brought back the special "Deep Discounts" section. While part of this same sale, it only highlights games that are discounted by at least 85%, with some titles even reaching 95% off. Some of the games included here are The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Watch Dogs 2, Far Cry 4, Wreckfest, Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2, The Quarry, Ghostwire Tokyo, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, and much more for just a few dollars each. The Steam Summer Sale of 2026 will be open for business until July 9, giving everyone two whole weeks to try and keep their wallets closed. If you want to see the biggest highlights, be sure to read our Weekend PC Game Deals special coming this Saturday.
    • what other retro software do yall use

      By energie10 · Posted

      Digisecret 2.1.431 Pro and Wzipse 4.0. Both are encrypted self-extracting archives.
    • Google reshuffles its AI coding team as it struggles to catch Anthropic

      By Karthik Mudaliar · Posted

      Google reshuffles its AI coding team as it struggles to catch Anthropic by Karthik Mudaliar Google is already reorganizing the AI coding “strike team” it created roughly two months ago, as it attempts to find ways to close the gap with Anthropic in one of generative AI’s most commercially important areas. According to The Information, Google DeepMind is expanding the team’s focus to include “midtraining,” rather than concentrating only on coding tools and agents. Midtraining takes place after a model’s broad initial training but before the final stages that prepare it to follow instructions and perform specific tasks. In simple terms, it gives developers another opportunity to expose a model to carefully selected data before it is polished for release. That could help Google improve Gemini’s underlying coding abilities instead of relying only on better prompts, interfaces, or post-training. Previous research has found that midtraining can be particularly effective for code and mathematics, where models must move from general language knowledge to more structured tasks. Google reportedly created the original strike team in April. It was led by Google DeepMind research engineer Sebastian Borgeaud, who previously worked on model pretraining, and focused on complex, long-running programming jobs. Google co-founder Sergey Brin and Google DeepMind chief technology officer Koray Kavukcuoglu were also reportedly involved in the effort. DeepMind researchers were said to believe that Anthropic’s coding tools were outperforming Google’s Gemini models, prompting the company to give the project more attention. Anthropic has made coding a central part of its AI strategy through Claude Code and its Claude model family. The company has continued improving that area, with Claude Opus 4.8 offering upgrades for coding and other agentic tasks, along with the now-unavailable Mythos and Fable models. The reshuffle also comes at a time when Google faces increased competition for AI researchers. Gemini co-lead Noam Shazeer recently announced that he was leaving Google for OpenAI, while two other researchers who contributed to Gemini and DeepMind projects are reportedly preparing to join Anthropic. It remains unclear whether the reorganized team will produce a new public Gemini model or developer product. No release date, team size, or specific performance target has been disclosed. Source: The Information
    • Politically funny images of the World

      By +primortal · Posted

  • Recent Achievements

    • First Post
      kinowa earned a badge
      First Post
    • Rookie
      krychek57 went up a rank
      Rookie
    • Grand Master
      Jaybonaut went up a rank
      Grand Master
    • One Year In
      Philsl earned a badge
      One Year In
    • Dedicated
      Scoobystu earned a badge
      Dedicated

  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      413
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      168
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      132
    4. 4
      Xenon
      73
    5. 5
      Michael Scrip
      73
    Show More

  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!