Brother asks, did he have to die?
RACELAND -- Standing at the base of the mountain where his brothers life was claimed, Ben James could make out the movements of rescuers preparing the body for removal near the summit as a military helicopter hovered nearby, almost 12,000 feet above the earth on which he stood.
"They were hoisting him up, and I was thinking that we wouldnt be doing this if things had been different. He would be coming down on a sled or on a snowcat that was warm inside, where they put hot water bags under your armpits," the retired Marine said during an interview at his Raceland home Thursday, following his return from Oregon.
His brother, Kelly James, a Dallas architect and father of four, was the only one of three climbers missing since Dec. 10 whose body was recovered during a weeklong search under sometimes-brutal conditions.
Ben James has voiced criticism about the rescue effort on Mount Hood and acknowledges that his words come from a bitter place.
Mount Hood County officials who oversaw the search say they did everything possible to find the climbers and that there is nothing they would have done differently.
Searchers found Kelly James in a snow cave Sunday, several days after he had died of hypothermia, according to the results of an autopsy Wednesday.
A search for the companions of Kelly James, Brian Hall of Dallas and Jerry "Nikko" Cooke of New York, is now a recovery operation, meaning hopes for finding them alive are essentially dashed.
Some members of the Hall and Cooke families agreed that the search for them should end, Hood River County Sheriff Joe Wampler has said.
Authorities say Kelly James might have been injured in a fall, prompting Hall and Cooke to go for help. The two climbers then might have fallen or been blown off a cliff, buried by an avalanche or died of hypothermia.
Ben James is the only relative of any climber to speak out so bluntly about dissatisfaction with the search, conducted during a week in which hurricane-force winds with blowing snow ripped the mountainside with temperatures at 18 below zero.
He is grateful for the efforts but questions the decisions made by search organizers.
During the first days of the search, crews would start up the 11,000-plus-foot mountain but head back as darkness loomed. James said that wasted precious time because when the next day came, rescuers would cover ground already traveled during days short in daylight.
"The rescuers would go up about 7,000 feet, and then the winds would come in," Ben James said. "The whole ball of wax is those rescuers are already prepared to go up there and stay overnight; they were equipped. Kelly hunkered down for seven or eight days. They could have dug them an ice cave. But they did not hunker down. They came all the way back to town to regroup and start out the next morning and go back up."
Deputy Sheriff Chris Guertin, incident commander for the search, expressed difficulty understanding the criticisms.
When rescuers retreated, it was to a base camp at 6,000 feet, Guertin said. The ground lost, he maintained, would easily be gained once the rescuers attempted to do it again.
"The conditions were not suitable at all for people to stay on the mountain," Guertin said in a telephone interview Thursday. "Every single time we tried to get to the summit in the early stages, we could not get to the summit. It was not for lack of trying. It was not possible. We could not get to the summit until the time we got to the summit, whether we had people camped out or getting down to the bottom. It was not safe and not an option, it was extreme."
"I am not saying anything bad about the sheriff, but I dont think he was the one who should have made the call," James said.
Asked if it was fair for other people to risk their lives because someone else takes risks while pursuing an extreme sport such as climbing, James bristled.
"What if you are driving down the road and you have an accident," James said. "You dont expect anyone to come? Every day you do something your life is at risk, even going into knee surgery."
James acknowledges that his feelings are bitter and says he has a right to be bitter.
"If it was someone they knew by name or a family member, an uncle or brother, they would have continued. They wouldnt have stopped halfway. That wind wouldnt have bothered them one little bit.
http://www.houmatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061222/NEWS/612220314/1026
