Vincent Wong representing Hong Kong while standing in front of Mount EverestOn the 8th day of the expedition, we travelled from Dingri to YungBu Temple, which is located 8 km from Mount Everest. Any place close to 5000 m is considered to be an unsuitable inhabitant for anybody. The thin distribution of air will lower the content of SpO2 in the body and makes it unable to support the normal mechanism to work properly, for example, the immune system will become weaker and we may feel heavy or even begin to see illusions.
This is where Vincent and his team stayed at YungBu Temple
Our expedition team used oxymeter to measure every teammate's SpO2 and heart-rate and found that almost everyone had headache and stomachache, the common symptoms of altitude sickness. Some of us even had such a serious headache that they were unable to move.
Staying at such high altitude, not only our body is affected but also our mind and emotions. Our team did an experiment to see how a high altitude affected our mind. We asked every teammate to fill in a questionnaire at every different altitude. The questionnaire called BRUMS is an indicator to monitor the changes of emotions and mind of people.
Vincent helping a teammate take the Oxymeter
The results revealed that most of us have become more negative or bitter in our emotions, or even depressed when the altitude rose. The tough environment has indeed made us change our thoughts all of a sudden.
Under such rough conditions, overcoming both mental and physical challenge was our biggest challenge. But I was keeping my positive thinking and confidence that we could tackle it together as a team.
Vincent asking a teammate to take the survey on an iPad