Visited same medical center on way up and down the mountain.

August 20 was a bad day for good judgement on Mt. Fuji. We already looked at the story of a 7-year-old Japanese boy whose dad left him to fend for himself on the side of Japan’s tallest mountain, and it turns out that on the same morning, a German woman had to be transported down from Mt. Fuji by rescue workers.

The 33-year-old woman began hiking the Fujinomiya Trail on the morning of August 19, beginning at the trail’s fifth station. In the afternoon, the woman, along with a traveling companion, reached the eighth station, representing a rise in elevation from 2,400 meters to 3,250 meters (7,874 feet to 10,663 feet). However, by this time the woman was suffering from altitude sickness symptoms, which typically include dizziness, fatigue, and nausea. After undergoing a medical examination at the eighth station’s medical center, the woman secured accommodations in a mountain hut and rested through the night.

The next morning, before dawn, the woman got back on the trail and pressed on to the summit, an ascent of a further 526 meters that, according to the official Mt. Fuji climbing website, takes around two hours under ordinary conditions. She eventually made it to the peak, but she would not be able to make it home under her own power.

It’s not clear whether it started happening during her climb to the summit or on her way back down, but at some point, the woman began to once again suffer from altitude sickness symptoms. She was able to make her way back down to the eighth station, but felt so unwell that she again visited the medical center, where it was deemed too dangerous for her to continue the descent on her own. A doctor called for members of the Shizuoka Prefectural Police’s mountain rescue team, who were posted near the ninth station, to come and assist the woman, which they did by transporting her in a bulldozer back down to the fifth station, where the trail meets up with the road network, after which she was transferred into the custody of paramedics who took her to the hospital for examination and treatment.

Following the German woman’s rescue, the Shizuoka Prefectural Police issued a statement reminding hikers, and not for the first time, that if they feel any concern about their physical condition while on the trail, they should call of their ascent.

The details of the woman’s first examination at the eighth station haven’t been made publicly available at the time of this writing, so it can’t be said whether or not her pre-dawn hike to the summit on August 20 was in defiance of the medical staff’s recommendations. However, much like with the incident involving a 99-year-old Japanese woman who needed to be rescued on the mountain last month, should you suffer from injuries or symptoms that require you to rest overnight in a mountain hut, it might be best to take that as a sign that your body isn’t currently up for a hike all the way to the top of Mt. Fuji, and that once you’re able to move under your own power again, down, not up, should probably be the direction you’re walking.

Source: TBS News Dig, Mt. Fuji Climbing Official Website
Top image: Pakutaso
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