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Unusually this is not the story about a mountaineer surviving some great ordeal on one of the high peaks of the Himalayas. Instead this is the incredible story of a twenty-two year old man named James Scott who in December 1992 before starting his medical training at a hospital in Katmandu in Nepal, went for a walk, became lost in bad weather and 43 days later was rescued after having survived a month and half on two chocolate bars, one caterpillar and a copy of Great Expectations….oh and all during a Himalayan winter.
James’s story has appeared in many newspaper articles around the time of his rescue and James has told his tale for various newspapers and in a book about the ordeal entitled “Lost in the Himalayas: James Scott’s 43-Day Ordeal“. The story he tells begins with an initial trek on which they had hired and attempted to carry too much gear in their opinion. There is an old mountaineers’ saying that the more gear you weigh yourself down with, the more likely you are to need to use it. James therefore decided on the next trek to not bother with the down jackets and stiff walking boots but to take half a dozen t-shirts, a light ski jacket and to walk in trainers.
James’ lists his gear as such:
Odine to purify water and a sensible medical kit. I had about 10 pairs of underwear and socks, half a dozen T-shirts, a pair of red woollen long johns, a pair of karate pants, cotton long pants, and tracksuit pants. I had one sweatshirt, and a light ski jacket. I had a towel, my camera and four books: The Silence of the Lambs, Great Expectations, the Lonely Planet Guide to Nepal and a Guide to Trekking in Nepal. We had a map, but like most you buy in Nepal, it was old and confusing. My pack weighed about 10 kilos. James Scott: How I Survived
On this second trek he set out with Tim, the same friend who had accompanied him on the first trek, along the Helambu trail, a low level trail that never rises above the 3,000m contour. However after the first day James was persuaded by some other trekkers coming in the opposite direction, to change to the more visually rewarding Gosainkunda trail that winds its way up through spectacular mountainous territory to the holy lake of Gosainkunda before crossing the Gosainkunda pass at 4,610m.
Tim had to turn back at this point because of bad knees, but James continued with an Australian trekker that they had encountered. It was at this point that James made two decisions he came to regret, which was that he gave Tim the new map in order to find his way home, whilst keeping the older and much more confusing map for himself and that Tim took their only lighter with him as well. as James concedes in his own article:
I gave the new map to Tim without thinking. Only later did I appreciate how good that map was. We only had one lighter between us, and that was in Tim’s bag. They were mistakes. James Scott: How I Survived
James had been told at the start of the trek that if should begin to snow it was advisable to turn around and head back down. Therefore when the weather worsened near the top of the Gosainkunda trail James and his new trekking partner Mark had and an “amicable discussion” but decided to separate, with Mark carrying on and James retreating back down the way they had come.
In the worsening conditions James lost their footprints and the trail in the deepening snow and became disorientated. After having tried to follow a creek down stream for two days – a good survival technique for when you are lost as habitation tends to be in the valleys – James discovered that he could not continue because of the increasing steepness of the terrain, which was riddled with deep sheer-sided gullies filled with fast running streams, steep wooden slopes 3,000 feet high and torrential waterfalls.
James had walked himself into a corner being unable to continue downwards or to retreat back the way he had come. James was reduced to seeking shelter under a large rock overhang which was dry and protected from the wind by a stand of trees. Just to prove how well James was still thinking at this point however, he also was aware that there was a sizeable open area only a short distance from the shelter in which he believed he might be seen by a helicopter i.e. he was thinking of how he might be rescued, one vital part of survival preparation.
For the next seven weeks, James survived on a combination of his medical training to stave off dehydration and hypothermia i.e. he observed the colour of his urine and pinched his skin to test its elasticity. He tried eating the local flora, such as pine leaves and bamboo but found them unpalatable – he was not to know that pine needles contain a considerable amount of vitamin C which would stave off symptoms of malnutrition such as scurvy.
James mentions that he spent the first 10 days hideously hungry and that he had to devise various mental distractions to counter the constant thoughts of food. The human body can withstand a sizeable length of time without food, however the body will crave carbohydrate in any form, as that is the body’s preferred energy supply. James craved, fresh fruit and junk food, all good sources of carbohydrate and therefore as James’s body ran out of carbohydrate in the form of glycogen, so therefore his body would have begun to use the glycogen stored in his muscle tissue, thereby weakening him further.
The body does have a neat trick however to prevent the protein in the muscle tissue from being totally consumed. This protective process is the human body capacity to switch from burning carbohydrates in the form of glycogen in the blood (glycolysis) to a state when it utilises ketone bodies in the blood instead (ketosis). This is something that occurs naturally in humans whilst we sleep – a time when the blood glucose levels drop off naturally. However is can also happen during starvation and even permanently perhaps in some cultures that do not have access to enough foods containing carbohydrate.
James spent the next 43 days not moving around much and anyway as the time progressed, so he was unable to move far from the camp anyway due the loss of muscle. On day 40 James mentions that he tried to walk out of the camp because of his parlous state, but only managed 100 metres in two hours before falling down retching a vomiting, a dangerous condition that would have weakened his already dehydrated and malnourished state.
Towards the end of his ordeal, James contemplated suicide and decided that simply to stop drinking water would be the most ‘convenient’ method of dispatch, rather than slitting his wrists of trying to hang himself using his shoelaces. He estimated that death through dehydration would take about 3 days but during the night he woke up and regretted his decision to give up:
When I awoke it was pitch black; the moon had turned again. I knew I had given up and I shouldn’t have. I got up and tried to collect more ice but it was too cold too eat. My mouth stuck to it. I thought it was too late. James Scott: How I Survived
This proved fortunate as on the next day he woke to the sound of a helicopter and even in his week condition he managed to signal to it using his sleeping bag, but when it flew off he was unsure whether or not it had seen him. By this stage he was reaching the end of his very long tether and he recalls crawling back to his rock shelter and urinating which by now had turned black in colour.
He had been seen however and by the evening of that day he heard the sound of the first human voices other than his in 43 days.
When I first heard faint voices I thought I was hallucinating. But the voices persisted and I raised my head and whistled through my teeth. A whistle came back. I shouted, “Namaste | Hello |” and an echoing shout returned.
Slowly the shouts came nearer, but I was too weak to get up. I shouted “I am under this rock” then suddenly there were two dark figures on the ledge. They ran over and ripped the hood off my head. They were two Nepalese.
They asked, “Are you James Scott from Australia?” I said I was and, for the first time since I had been lost, I cried and cried. They were from Talu and they started hugging me and kissing me. I noticed one of them was barefoot; I knew that many villagers simply could not afford shoes. They were very brave. One of them said, “James Scott, you are a god. I asked why I was a god, and he said because no-one lived up here for more than 10 days. I said no, God must have kept me alive. James Scott: How I Survived