At an elevation of 6962 m (22,841 feet), Mt Aconcagua is the highest mountain in the Western hemisphere with the greatest elevation in the world outside of Asian mountain ranges. Since 2001, 42,731 mountaineers have attempted to summit this peak. Using available data from the Aconcagua park medical service (Servicio Médico Aconcagua), researchers performed a retrospective descriptive analysis to determine the number and circumstances of fatalities on Aconcagua from 2001 to 2012. Of those with summit permits, 33 fatalities occurred between 2001 and 2012, resulting in a fatality rate of 0.77 per 1000 climbers or 0.077%. The fatality rate determined by this study is lower than that of Mt Everest and Mt Denali, but higher than the fatality rate on Mt Rainier.
The researchers further investigated the fatalities and found that most were caused by trauma (27.2%) and high altitude pulmonary edema (21.2%), followed by hypothermia (15.2%), unknown cause (12.1%), and sudden cardiac death (12.1%). No deaths have been attributed to high altitude cerebral edema (HACE), but the authors suggest this may be because of a lack of recognition of HACE by the initial responder. Only 3 of the fatalities involved South American climbers and guides, and the authors suspect that other nationalities traveling to Argentina may underestimate the amount of risk involved in climbing Aconcagua and face additional pressure to summit owing to the greater investment in travel, time, and expedition finances. Additional discussion compares Aconcagua’s fatality rate with the fatality rates of several other major North American and Himalayan peaks and discusses factors contributing to different fatality rates between mountains. Study limitations included the relatively brief period of analysis, which is the result of destruction of historical records before 2001, as well as the retrospective nature of the study, which made for difficult verification of the exact cause of death and location of each fatality.
(High Alt Med Biol. 2013;14:298–303) J Westensee, I Rogé, JD Van Roo, et al.
Prepared by Heather Beasley, University of Utah School of Medicine Medical Student, Salt Lake City, UT, USA.