THE first double amputee to climb Everest was enmeshed in a row with Sir Edmund Hillary yesterday over the decision to leave a mountaineer to die just below the summit.

Mark Inglis was among 40 climbers to pass David Sharp, 34, a Yorkshire engineer who had run out of oxygen after reaching the summit. Mr Sharp later died in a snow cave 300 metres (1,000ft) from the peak.

Sir Edmund, who in 1953 became the first man to reach the summit, said he was horrified by “callous” modern climbers. “Our expedition would never have considered leaving a man like that. We were very much aware of our responsibilities to look after any person on the mountain who was in distress.”

Mr Inglis, who is on his way home to New Zealand, said that his party had tried to give Mr Sharp oxygen, although he was close to death, and a radio distress call had been sent out.Mr Inglis said: “I walked past David but only because there were far more effective people than myself to help him out.”

Sir Edmund’s admonition was prompted by a television documentary in which Mr Inglis said that his party could do nothing for Mr Sharp, who was out of oxygen and had no proper gloves when they found him sheltering under a rock. Mr Inglis said: “I radioed and (the expedition manager) Russ said, ‘You can’t do anything. He’s been there a number of hours without oxygen. He’s effectively dead’. So we carried on.”

The decision was also questioned by Phil Ainslie, a scientist and mountaineer at Otago University, who said that it might have been possible to revive Mr Sharp with bottled oxygen and get him to safety.

Sir Edmund said that it was clear that the priority of the climbers who passed by Mr Sharp was to get to the top. “David Sharp’s welfare was secondary. There is no doubt at all that there has been a lowering of standards in recent years. As a consequence, people are being neglected and are dying.”

Sir Edmund had told the New Zealand Herald that he was horrified by the callous attitude of today’s climbers. “They don’t give a damn for anybody else who may be in distress and it doesn’t impress me at all that they leave someone lying under a rock to die,” he said.

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