chose this mountain. i wanted to see how my mountain did above 20,000 feet. so far so good. it worked out pretty well. i climbed with a guy namedç gaspard. he was strong as a bull moose. we knocked out the summit. we burned all of our bad weather days. the mountain threw everything at us it possibly could. wind storms, snow storms, avalanches, everything but flying monkeys, but we were able to summit on our last possible day. so, at 23,000 feet people die and have dyed from pulmonary edema from not handling the altitude. you can t really know, can you, whether that s going to hit you. you can try to do things smart by going gradually into the altitude and also what i did ahead of time, i have this weirdo michael jacksonish tent that was delivered to my house. and we started reducing the oxygen in my bed about the month before i went to climb and got up to 12,000 feet and then we went up to base
that s particularly why i chose this mountain. i wanted to see how my mountain did above 20,000 feet. so far so good. it worked out pretty well. i climbed with a guy namedç gaspard. he was strong as a bull moose. we knocked out the summit. we burned all of our bad weather days. the mountain threw everything at us it possibly could. wind storms, snow storms, avalanches, everything but flying monkeys, but we were able to summit on our last possible day. so, at 23,000 feet people die and have dyed from pulmonary edema from not handling the altitude. you can t really know, can you, whether that s going to hit you. you can try to do things smart by going gradually into the altitude and also what i did ahead of time, i have this weirdo michael jacksonish tent that was delivered to my house. and we started reducing the oxygen in my bed about the month before i went to climb and got up to 12,000 feet
because then they re at sea level. this is a life-threatening situation. it s what mountain climbers get when they get to these areas and are acclimated to it. you can imagine, an 86-year-old landing in there and over the next day or two getting this type of condition. you talk about his age, doctor. buzz aldrin has been to the moon and back, right? the south pole at least is on this planet for him but he is 86. are there any warnings you would give to someone considering a huge trip like this, of that age specifically? is it just a matter of overall physical fitness and health? it s interesting with high altitude pulmonary edema. it doesn t affect people older as younger people. we re not quite sure that happens. you want to make sure you re in the best physical health you can be because it s an extremely harsh environment, extimely isolated environment. it s a long flight to get there. main thing i would say, talk to your doctor, make sure have you what you need lined up and make
we don t know his condition. they say it is stable. how complicated is it to rescue someone from the south pole? it s extremely complicated. i did this a couple times when i was stationed at the south pole with the air force. what essentially happens is you re at mcmurdo, on the coast, sea level. most people don t realize the south pole is above 9,000 feet in altitude. when people get there, number one, there s not a whole lot of f facilities, a lot lot of medical condition. most of the evacuations i did were because of high altitude pulmonary edema, the same thing mountain climbers get. they take them to new zealand, which seems to be what happened here. thank you very much. yes just know john kerry was just down there, the secretary of state, the first to visit the south pole. it is a very difficult challenge, especially for someone of his age. thank you, doctor. coming up next, bernie
his condition deteriorated. a statement from that tour group says aldrin has fluid in his lungs but responding well to antibiotics. they say he s in good spirits. nbc medical contributor dr. john torres has been following this story for us. when you hear this description of buzz aldrin s condition and with the caveat you are not treating buzz aldrin, obviously, can you draw any conclusions as to what may have happened to him while he was on this trip? hallie, it sounds like what we call high altitude pulmonary edema. this happened when i was back there in 2006, i was doing these type of south pole rescues. we would be stationed at mcmurdo. we would get to the south pole as quick as we could in a c-130 take them back to mcmurdo because you want to get them to sea level. what a lot of people don t realize is the south pole itself is actually at 9,000 feet. depending on if there s a low pressure system, it can go as