She proposed to Ngima Kale Sherpa, Fischer’s Base Camp sirdar, that they assemble a team of Sherpas to take Ngawang down the valley on foot. Ngima balked at this idea, however. According to Hunt, the sirdar was adamant that Ngawang didn’t have HAPE or any other form of altitude illness, “but rather was suffering from ‘gastric,’ the Nepali term for stomachache,” and that an evacuation was unnecessary.
