Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why

The author shares the story of Joe Simpson and Simon Yates, two British mountaineers who were descending a mountain in Peru when Simpson broke his leg. After briefly grieving this dangerous and painful event, Simpson decided to stay calm and think strategically. He told Yates his leg was broken. Yates rappelled down to him and gave him medicine for the pain. Gonzales notes that survivors usually move past grief or anger very quickly in order to begin thinking rationally, as Simpson did on the mountain. Hanging from a snow cliff, the two men used their hand axes to climb to the top, unsure if they would survive. Simpson later described how he focused his mind on the patterns of his body moving upward. Gonzales claims patterns, which can include physical patterns, chanting, marching, or songs, are “elemental” to human life and help people balance their emotions with thinking (232). While Simpson believed he would probably die, he focused on the pattern until he made it to the top of the cliff. Yates began lowering Simpson down the mountain with a long rope, climbing down to him, and then repeating the process. By the end of this grueling climb, both men were becoming hypothermic and developing frostbite.