Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live Today

Falling Just Short of Mount Everest

Aired May 20, 2002 - 12:46   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: They came close, very close, but just stopped short of the summit. A group of American women failed to make it to the top of Everest by about 285 feet.

Rob Koebbel (ph) of our affiliate KTVK talked to the parents of one of the women in Phoenix, Arizona.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm trying to figure out what is going on with Alison. I can't tell what's going on with the climbers with (INAUDIBLE) I don't like the look of the weather. I'm sorry. But I need to...

ROB KOEBBEL, KTVK REPORTER (voice-over): Thousands of miles away from Mount Everest, Cookie Levine uses a computer and the Internet to keep track of how her daughter Alison is doing on her climb up Mount Everest.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She's not disoriented. But the (INAUDIBLE) isn't helping the way I would like it to. Can I go with some with some oral dex?

COOKIE LEVINE, MOTHER OF EVEREST CLIMBER: Dexamethasone.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Absolutely. Go for it. Give her dex and start hauling her down, if you have to.

KOEBBEL: And with that, the team's journey to the top of Mount Everest is over. It is just too dangerous to keep moving on as bad weather nears and Alison is still weak.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I've got to see if I can get Alison stabilized. I don't know what is going on here. I think she is just out of gas. I've got to make sure that I can get her back up to speed. Over.

KOEBBEL: Along with radio transmissions and a written update, the couple followed their daughter through some tough times on her climb.

C. LEVINE: I really did not panic, surprisingly. I wasn't happy reading that she said some of the blood vessels in her eyes had popped. That is not something a mother likes to read. But I knew she was in great hands.

JACK LEVINE, FATHER OF EVEREST CLIMBER: At the same time that we learned that she had collapsed, in the same dispatch, we learned that she had recovered and was proceeding down to the next lower camp on her own steams. ,

KOEBBEL: The Levines have been glued to their computer screen, going through hundreds of pictures of their daughter's journey, as shots really document the incredible amount of strength, coordination, combined with willpower, that Levine and her teammates put themselves through over several weeks, until they finally had to call it quits.

J. LEVINE: We would love to see her, yes. We will probably be seeing her in about a month. I don't know whether it's going to be here or San Francisco, but that's a definite date.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HEMMER: Again, KTVK with that story out of Phoenix, some dramatic stuff. Imagine two parents sitting at home in Arizona wondering about their daughter on the summit of the highest mountain in the world. Had they made it, it would have been a first by an all- women team.

Perhaps they will try again sometime soon.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com