Anurag Maloo, the Indian climber miraculously rescued three days after he fell into a crevasse on Annapurna, has opened his eyes and started recognizing people, Prateek Gupta told ExplorersWeb. Gupta works for ASC360, the insurance company covering Maloo’s accident.
Maloo was alive when Adam Bielecki found him inside the crevasse. That was a shock for the Polish climber and the other rescuers. They expected to be retrieving a body, not a survivor.
Rescuers lift an unconscious Anurag Maloo out of the crevasse on Annapurna. The climber in green is Mariusz Hatala. Photo: Tashi Sherpa
Gradual improvement
Maloo was initially taken to the hospital in Pokhara, where a determined team of doctors kept him alive by performing CPR on him for several hours. In the evening, Maloo was taken to Medicity, a bigger hospital in Kathmandu. The advanced facilities there probably saved his life. At the time, he was sometimes trying to breathe, his heart beat on its own, but his brain was not responding.
“Still, I am optimistic,” Bielecki told ExplorersWeb at the time. “I know of cases of severe hypothermia that, properly treated, eventually respond.”
A helicopter transferred Anurag Maloo from Pokhara to a Kathmandu hospital the same day he was rescued. Photo: The Quint
Still critical
Gupta — who visits all his clients in the hospital in Kathmandu — says that Maloo opened his eyes and gave signs of recognizing some people.
Maloo’s state remains very serious. According to local media, he still needs a ventilator to breathe and his kidneys require dialysis. Doctors do not take someone off a ventilator until a patient is conscious.
Maloo is slowly improving, which is more than anyone except his family — who never gave up hope after he disappeared on Annapurna — expected. His parents have traveled to Nepal and have been there with him.
