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Mark Inglis returned home to New Zealand yesterday after achieving the decidedly admirable accomplishment of scaling Mount Everest -- one that is accentuated by the fact that he's a double amputee. But the media have seemed intent on focusing on Inglis's (and dozens of other climbers') failure to stop and help a lone British climber, David Sharp, who was found sheltering in a small cave on the mountainside, three hundred metres from the top. This, combined with Sir Edmund Hillary's criticism, has significantly eclipsed Mark Inglis's achievement.

It's been said that David Sharp was a dead man breathing as the rest of the climbers were passing him -- "He could not speak, his limbs were frozen solid and the only sign of life was slight movement in his eyes." On this basis, there was an understanding that he was beyond help. On the assumption that this was the case, though, would it not have been the right thing to do to give him some human contact in his dying minutes? Even if it were to be "just" a sherpa that was accompanying one of the other parties (it has been said that some of the sherpas had summited Everest seven times before), I'm sure that if David had been conscious of what was going on around him at all, he would have appreciated that a lot more than watching forty people file past him in the will to get to the top.

At the same time, the media coverage has spawned a lot of self-righteous comment from the public as to how they would have responded confronted with such a situation, as Herald contributor Jim Hopkins has pointed out. People have been talking as if they know how they would respond in that situation, which it is of course practically impossible to know exactly. We may have morals as to going out of our way to help human beings (we may) but this doesn't necessarily mean that we would potentially risk our own lives, as Mark Inglis may well have been doing if he himself had stopped, at the top of Mount Everest to attempt to save someone who by many accounts was acknowledgeably pretty much dead. Sir Edmund Hillary's comments about the response from the other climbers being "pathetic" certainly have a lot of weight behind them because of the simple fact that he is Sir Ed. They've added a lot of fire to the public controversy. However, it's important to take into account that if Sir Ed had been in such a situation "in his time," it would have been vastly different to the situation Mark Inglis was in, with notions of camaradarie and the like having been far more prominent back then, and obviously also that not as many people did the climb.

Significantly, the Everest climb has become considerably more commercial -- many, many people attempt it each season, and a significant handful fail, some losing their lives. Climbers have the choice to spend-up large, as Mark did, to get an experienced party that will greatly increase their chances of getting to the top; or, as David did, get in on what Inglis called "a pittance" of as little as eight thousand dollars, and attempt to conquer the mountain on their own. David didn't even have oxygen with him. Mark used this as the basis for an argument that the climb is "not commercial enough," that if it were more commercially regulated people would have better accompaniment to ensure they get up the mountain as opposed to getting into the situation that David did.

David's family aren't even complaining about what has happened to him. They are saying that they don't want anyone to be blamed for his death. But there's obviously too much in it for the media to not have a field day over the ethical dilemma. The only thing that is really making this a controversy at all, is the media's now-constant acknowledgement that it is in fact a "controversy," and Sir Ed's apparent will to help reinforce the wall of opinion that builds against Mark. Every article about Mark's achievement includes a mention of what happened to David, and indeed a mention of Sir Ed's criticism. It just irritates me that this man isn't being allowed to have his moment in the sun.

When I first heard about the story of Mark walking past David, the only sort of doubt that crossed my mind briefly was that "do we want New Zealanders representing us in the world like that?". But I realised soon after that that's completely beside the point. Mark was not representing New Zealand in climbing Everest; it was a personal conquest, to overcome his demons after having lost his legs in previous climbs. Certainly, the potential positive impact that he's had on the world because of his achievement -- a double amputee climbed Mount Everest! It's a feat that is testament to all human ability -- is massive, and should outweigh any controversy. He's a great man. The media still seem intent on focusing on the dirt however and putting all of the pressure on Mark's shoulders, forgetting to a large extent the responsibilities of the other climbers and sherpas, which could technically even be greater than Mark's because of his being a double amputee.