Science of Survival: The Everest Effect

Outside Podcast

Sports, Wilderness

4.4 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 7 March 2017

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On the morning of May 25, 2006, Myles Osborne was poised to become one of the last climbers of the season to summit Mount Everest. The weather was perfect, and it seemed nothing would stop his team. Then a flapping of orange fabric caught his eye. He believed it to be a tent—until the fabric spoke: “I imagine you’re surprised to see me here.” The speaker was Lincoln Hall, who'd been reported dead the night before. He was gloveless, frostbitten, and hallucinating—but alive. Osborne's expedition was faced with a dilemma: would they stay and help Hall, giving up the summit and endangering their own lives? Or finish this once-in-a-lifetime journey that had been years in the making? We explore the choice they made and look into the fascinating science around how we make decisions in high-risk environments—and live with them afterward.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by Health IQ,
0:03.6	the only company that measures your knowledge of healthy living,
0:06.7	and then uses it to save you money.
0:09.6	Back by popular demand, my girlfriend Ellie is going to take another quiz with me
0:13.2	this time on cold remedies. Although research is mixed the herb echinacea
0:18.9	added to many cold remedies might shorten severity and duration of colds if taken when.
0:24.0	Before cold starts, when cold is at its worst, at first sign of a cold, when fever sets in.
0:30.0	I'm going to say at first sign of a cold.
0:34.0	Answer, correct.
0:36.0	My grandpa had a saying about colds.
0:39.0	If you take care of yourself and get enough rest, the last seven days and if you don't a week.
0:47.0	That's kind of how I feel about that canacia.
0:51.0	If you think you know which cold remedies are based on more than the placebo effect,
0:55.8	go to health IQ.com slash outside and take the quiz. That's health IQ.com slash outside.
1:04.0	From Outside. From Outside magazine and PRX, this is the science of survival.
1:17.0	You're not supposed to survive an unsheltered night out on Mount Everest death zone.
1:26.0	It's not the brush with death zone, or it's not supposed to be.
1:30.0	But in 2006, Australian climber Lincoln Hall came about as close as you can come to joining the
1:36.5	hundreds who have died there without actually doing it.
1:39.9	When a team of climbers found him, he was so hypothermic that he was ripping off his clothes.
1:45.2	Just a few minutes later, and he would have certainly died.
1:48.4	But they managed to save him.
	...

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