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Touching the voidWhat kept him going?TOUCHING THE VOID Even as a bit of a film buff I have to say that I've found few movies as compelling as this dramatised reconstruction of one of the great survival stories of recent times. In 1985 two young mountaineers successfully ice-climbed the 21,000 foot 'Suila Grande' in the Peruvian Andes. It was what happened on their descent which forms the basis of the book and later the film of the same title. A short distance below the summit in blizzard conditions, Joe Simpson fell and totally shattered his left leg. Following another terrible fall his climbing partner, Simon Yates, was left holding him out of sight in mid-air for over five hours in darkness and gale-force winds. Not knowing whether Simpson was dead or alive and about to be dragged to his own death, Yates took the horrifying decision to cut the rope. Simpson fell again. Convinced he had killed his friend, Yates began the slow descent to their base camp alone. In fact, Simpson had fallen into a huge crevasse and was effectively trapped in the heart of the mountain. Except that, unable to climb upward, by descending deeper and deeper he eventually managed to crawl out via a tiny passage through the solid ice walls. After three days without food and suffering massive haemorrhage, dehydration and frostbite he began to drag himself down the remaining distance, eventually crawling into their camp just a few hours before the others would have left in total despair. Not aloneThe account of the shock of the reunion was almost as intense as that of the accident itself. The reconstruction with expert mountaineers was interlaced with face-to-face narration by the survivors themselves, describing their physical and emotional ordeal. The audience sat spellbound for the full two hours apart from the collective gasps and sighs. In a Hollywood-dominated medium this is brilliant British film at its best, and an inspiring tribute to the power of the human spirit. One line of Simpson's commentary struck me deeply as a believer in Christ. In answering the question, what kept him going in the face of such agony and trauma, Joe Simpson said, 'I couldn't bear to be on my own when I died. I wanted someone to be with me ... I had to get back to camp in the hope that someone would still be there.' Surely it's this very thought which lies at the root of our Christian hope. That when death does at last extend its icy hand we will not be on our own on the mountain. Malcolm MacGregor,
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