Man’s second-time rescue from Japan’s Mount Fuji after bid to retrieve phone sparks anger

A Chinese university student who was rescued from Japan’s iconic Mount Fuji twice within four days has become the target of online ridicule and anger.

The unnamed 27-year-old man, who lives in Japan, was initially helped off Mount Fuji on April 22 after he became nauseous, apparently feeling the effects of altitude sickness, near the summit of the 3,776-metre mountain. The man had also lost his crampons – necessary on the ice-covered higher levels at Mount Fuji – other climbing equipment, and his mobile phone.

Four days later, emergency rescue teams received a call from a Japanese climber that a man had collapsed on the Fujinomiya trail, more than 3,000 metres above sea level. The man had apparently suffered minor abrasions, prompting a police mountaineering team to be dispatched to help him.

The man was unable to walk and had to be carried down the mountain on a stretcher until he could be handed over to an ambulance crew after midnight, some 14 hours after the initial emergency call. The man was again suffering from altitude effects but did not sustain any serious injury.

Police were surprised when they learned that it was the same hiker who had been rescued several days earlier and that he had attempted the dangerous ascent again in a bid to recover his mobile phone after he forgot to bring it with him during the first rescue.

Local media reports did not say whether the man was able to find his phone in the end.

  

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