Sue Purvis

Education at 18,000 Feet: Extreme Altitude Medical Training
“Pa Nuru Sherpa, come up to the front of class and tell us why you are here,” I said to a group of high altitude Sherpa guides sitting at their make shift desks inside his tea lodge in Phortse, Nepal.

“Teacher Susan, ten years ago and before I take your class I find stranger high on the mountain. He no walk, no talk. He just laid there like he was dead,” he tells us in his broken English. “I scared. I didn’t know what to do. It was first trip high on mountain for me.”

Pause. The room is silent.