WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT Beck Weathers, from Texas, was declared dead by fellow climbers after surviving the deadliest storm on Everest
A 49-year-old father was declared dead by fellow climbers after he miraculously survived the deadliest storm ever recorded on Everest.
Beck Weathers, hailing from Texas in the US, vowed to transform his life and win back his wife, Peaches, following her extraordinary efforts to rescue him from a perilous mountain slope in 1996.
Beck embarked on the climb in May alongside expedition leader Rob Hall, Doug Hansen, Andy Harris, Mike Groom and journalist Jon Krakauer, according to HowStuffWorks.
However, an eye surgery Beck had undergone 18 months prior disastrously failed, leaving him nearly blind and without depth perception.
Realising his weakened state, he chose to wait for the rest of the group to return from the summit. Tragically, he was left in the same spot for nearly 10 hours.
This prolonged exposure would have lasting effects, with parts of his body falling off in the months following his rescue.
He recounted: “I remember sitting in a chair when a big chunk of my right eyebrow, hair included, fell off in my hand. Later, as I was walking down the hall, my big toe fell off and went skittering away.”, reports the Mirror.
However, Beck was discovered by Mike Groom and a separate group led by Scott Fischer. Mike spearheaded a breakaway group who set out to locate the High Camp – which they successfully did.
However, they were aware that the chances of the rest of the group surviving were slim. In a heroic attempt to save lives, a Russian named Anatoli Boukreev decided to search for the remaining members of the group.
He found Beck and declared him dead – a claim that was confirmed the following day by Stuart Hutchison and three Sherpas who found him again.
Upon returning to camp, he overheard people expressing shock at the presence of “a dead guy” in Scott Fischer’s tent, as reported by D Magazine. In his memoir My Journey Home From Everest, Beck wrote: “Nearly everyone packed up to break camp at daybreak, and they did so very quietly. I didn’t hear any of it. Besides myself, only Jon Krakauer. and Todd Burleson and Pete Athans. who were guiding the same expedition together, remained in camp.”
“‘Hello!”‘ I yelled. ‘Anybody out there? Krakauer, who was checking each tent before descending the mountain, poked his head inside. Upon seeing me, Jon’s jaw dropped in disbelief.”
I was supposed to be dead. Conventional wisdom suggests that in hypothermia cases, even such an extraordinary revival as mine merely postpones the inevitable.
When they informed Peach that I was not as dead as they had initially thought – but critically injured – they were careful not to give her false hope.
His wife Peaches, in collaboration with Stuart Hutchison, John Taske and three Sherpas, arranged for a helicopter to reach an unprecedented altitude to bring her husband home. Beck underwent surgery to save his hand, which had turned into “a set of dead puppets.”
Hand surgeon Mike Doyle informed Beck: “I don’t know how to tell you this, but you don’t have any blood supply in your right hand. It stops above the wrist. And you have very little in your left hand. I don’t know what to say.”
They also constructed a new nose for Beck. He described: “A vaguely nosey-looking object was cut out of the skin in the centre of my forehead.
Then, using pieces of cartilage from my ears and skin from my neck, they shaped my new nose to give the whole thing some structure, and got it growing, upside down, on my forehead.”
However, the near-death experience transformed Beck’s life for the better and he has stated he wouldn’t alter it. He penned: “For the first time in my life I have peace. I no longer seek to define myself externally, through goals and achievements and material possessions. For the first time in my life, I’m comfortable inside my own skin.”
