A viral video from Bianca Adler, a 17-year-old climber who attempted to summit Mount Everest a few months back, shows her struggling to breathe and speak after spending four days in the “Death Zone.” The video has many people questioning whether an Everest summit is worth the physical toll and risk to climbers’ lives.
Videos by Outdoors
In the video, Adler is sitting in a tent at Base Camp with a visibly wind-burned face. Her breaths sound wheezy and shallow, and she can barely speak. She coughs several times throughout, making the video tough to watch. At the time of the video, she had just returned from the “Death Zone”—the region above 8,000 meters.
“After spending almost 4 days in the death zone, [I was] feeling the worst I have ever felt,” Adler wrote in her TikTok post sharing the troubling footage.
[RELATED: Bear Grylls Says He Wouldn’t Climb Everest Again. Here’s Why.]
In her Instagram post sharing the same video, Adler provided a little bit more information.
“After 3 nights at camp 4 and 2 summit attempts which were unsuccessful due to weather conditions, I came back down to base camp,” she wrote. “I felt awful, for many different reasons.”
For Adler, who’s from Melbourne, Australia, climbing Everest was a dream—one she’ll have to postpone for now.
“I always want to choose life over a potential summit,” Adler told SherpaLegend.com. “I felt strong, like I could summit, and was devastated.”
Watch Adler’s viral video, showing her struggling to breathe after spending several days in the “death zone” of Mount Everest (and attempting to summit twice):
Here’s a short clip of what Adler went through during her time in Everest’s Death Zone:
Header stock image by Dieter Schmitt / 500px/Getty Images
