Record-breaking mountaineer refutes reports of climbing over porter's dead body to scale K2

A record-breaking mountaineer has refuted allegations that her team walked over the frozen dead body of a porter to reach the K2 summit in Pakistan and become the fastest climber in the world to scale all peaks above 8,000 metres.

Kristin Harila climbed the second highest mountain in the world on July 27 along with her 35-year-old Nepali sherpa, Tenjen (Lama) Sherpa, to complete the summit to the 14th highest peak in more than three months to secure a new world record.

During the ascent of the Norwegian mountaineer, porter Mohammed Hassan, unfortunately, fell off a sheer edge from a height of about 8,200 metres. 37-year-old Harila insisted that everything was done by her team to save Hassan, however, conditions appeared too dangerous to move him.

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Images were shared of climbers moving past Hassan on a ridge during the ascent of Harila. Austrian climbing duo Philip Flamig and Wilhelm Steindl, who were also present on K2 that day, stated that the footage they later recorded with the use of a drone showed the mountaineers walking over his body and not trying to rescue him.

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Speaking to Austria’s Standard newspaper, Flamig said, “He is being treated by one person while everyone else is pushing towards the summit. The fact is that there was no organised rescue operation although there were sherpas and mountain guides on site who could have taken action.”

“Such a thing would be unthinkable in the Alps. He was treated like a second-class human being. If he had been a Westerner, he would have been rescued immediately. No one felt responsible for him. What happened there is a disgrace. A living human was left lying so that records could be set,” Steindl added.

Porter took a job for paying medical bills of diabetic mother

As per Steindl, who paid a visit to the family of the porter after descending the mountain, Hassan had taken up the job of rope fixer despite his lack of experience so that he can pay the medical bills of his diabetic mother.

The allegations were rejected by Harila who said that her team did everything they could to save Hassan.

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“It is simply not true to say that we did nothing to help him. We tried to lift him back up for an hour and a half and my cameraman stayed on for another hour to look after him. At no point was he left alone,” she said while speaking to the Telegraph

“Given the conditions, it is hard to see how he could have been saved. He fell on what is probably the most dangerous part of the mountain where the chances of carrying someone off were limited by the narrow trail and poor snow conditions,” the mountaineer said.

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