ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, May 12, 1996 TAG: 9605130113
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A15 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: SEATTLE
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Scott Fischer, the veteran climber known as ``Mr. Rescue,'' was missing Saturday on Mount Everest and presumed dead, along with four others.
The climbers apparently lost their way in a blizzard while heading back to base camps Friday on the world's tallest mountain, said Hari Saran Shreshta, a spokesman for the Nepalese Tourism Ministry in Katmandu.
He identified three of the others as Seaborn B. Weather of Dallas, Yasuko Namba, 47, of Tokyo, and Andrew Michael Harris, 31, of Queenstown, New Zealand.
Relatives of Douglas Hansen, 44, of Renton, Wash., said he was the fifth climber.
Ministry officials said Hansen and the others were members of one climbing group led by a New Zealand guide, while Fischer, 40, led a separate eight-member group.
Karen Dickinson, Fischer's partner in the guide firm, said in Seattle that he was last seen unconscious and barely clinging to life above 27,000 feet on the mountain Saturday afternoon.
Hansen's sister, Diane Hansen, and Favian Hansen, his father, said they had few details from Nepal.
``He was alive when they got to him, but he died,'' the elder Hansen said. ``Something about his breathing went bad.''
LENGTH: Short : 36 lines KEYWORDS: FATALITYby CNB