Free Left for Dead by Beck Weathers Page A

that at any given time there weretwenty-five or thirty people there. Peach was right in the middle of it, even washing tie-dyed shirts!
    Meg had brought them home from school that morning, as part of her project, and they needed to be washed in cold water or something. So while everyone’s on the telephone, calling all over the place for help and advice what to do, Peach had these T-shirts in the washing machine!
Peach:
    We were not worried about getting Beck off the mountain. We didn’t know that was any kind of big deal, or what it entailed. We just knew he was in critical condition, and he probably was going to need better medical attention than what was available in Nepal. That was it.
    So starting on Saturday and then on into Sunday—Mother’s Day—everyone worked the telephones. Terry White, who is a hematologist and oncologist, and Jon Esber, a partner in Beck’s pathology practice, organized a search for the nearest medical center staffed with U.S.-trained physicians. It turned out to be in Singapore.
    Since we assumed Beck was frostbitten, Terry also led the search for a frostbite expert. The best one in the world was in Alaska, which we expected would be Beck’s second stop after Singapore, once we got him out of Nepal.
    Our search for a way to evacuate Beck began with Kay Bailey Hutchison, the junior Republican senator from Texas, whom several of us knew. Her office stayed in constant touch with us.
    Linda Gravelle called our governor, George W. Bush. Histwin daughters had gone to school with Meg, as well as Linda’s daughter, Gwyneth.
Linda Gravelle:
    I called him on his private line in Austin and got his daughter, Jenna. I said, “I need to talk to your dad.” She said, “Well, he’s jogging,” or something like that. I told her what had happened, and that it was very important he call me back.
    He did, and told me that this was a federal matter, that he could not deal with it on the state level. I said, “I cannot believe you! This is someone you know and you won’t even help me!”
    He said, “I just can’t do anything. I don’t know what to tell you.”
    I was pretty mad. We’ve seen him since, and the subject does not come up.
    Then somebody said, “We need to get a Democrat involved in this.”
Peach:
    Cappy and Janie McGarr are friends of ours who are close to Tom Daschle, the minority leader in the Senate. They contacted him at home that morning. Daschle contacted the State Department, which contacted the embassy in Katmandu, which assigned David Schensted to the matter, which resulted in Madan K.C. risking his life to save Beck’s.
    Madeleine David called me from New Zealand at about 10:00 P.M. Dallas time on Sunday night to report that Beck had been successfully airlifted off the mountain. He’d be in Katmandu within the hour. I was ticketed to fly out to Nepal the following night at eight-twenty. But now that Beck had beenrescued and his brother Dan was due in Katmandu at any minute, Madeleine counseled me to cancel my flight. Beck and Dan probably would be headed home together before I could even get there.
    About three hours later—around 1:30 A.M. on Monday—Beck himself called from Katmandu. It was a familiar time of night to hear from him. While we were courting and Beck was still in medical school, he often called me in the middle of the night. I was used to it.
    What made this call different from any before or after was Beck’s clear need to connect with me, to actually
talk
to me. It was unspoken, but I immediately sensed something completely different about my husband. He’d been transformed by some-thing—I didn’t yet know what—that went beyond a lucky brush with death. He’d had those before.
    He assured me he was okay, and said he was being cared for by Dr. Schlim. I didn’t know anything about the rescue, or how dangerous it was, until Beck explained some of it during this call. I also did not learn of his epiphany until the next day, when we were being