Anurag Maloo’s attempt to scale Annapurna, the 10th highest mountain in the world, almost ended in tragedy. the cord broke and he landed in a crevasse and hit his head While rappelling down.
“What sustained me was the hope that they will come for me,” he said of his team-mates, recounting the horrific event that took pace more than three years ago, on 17 April, 2023.
Today, he said he feels like a child of both India and Nepal. Given the weather, and the low food supplies, the mission looked suicidal. There was no avalanche this time. What happened was as unexpected as it was shocking. “I was rappelling down when the rope vanished. There was no food or water. “Then my chest moved. But a similar mood of dejection pervaded in the hospital as well and Maloo’s brother had to convince the doctors to keep the CPR (Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation) going.
The team, he said, had turned back 150 m below the summit. The plan, he said, was to go down to camp 2, rest and recuperate. “It was 6000 meters high from the sea level. The temperature was minus 30 to minus 40 degrees Celsius. It was Day 4 when help arrived. He opened his eyes after receiving CPP for exactly 4 hours and 5 minutes, he said.
It was broken,” said Maloo. Or cellphone to call for help, call my mother,” he said at NDTV World’s Anviksha summit. “Only hope stayed alive that someone would come and rescue me,” he added. But they had given him up for dead, he said. The people who came to carry out the “body” kicked him. They shone a torch in my eye and shouted, “He is alive”. His family, he said, had never doubted that he would be found and revived.
