LIPIS: The female mountain climber who fainted after suffering breathing difficulties and died on Gunung Reskit in Kuala Tahan here on Tuesday (Feb 6) managed to drink some water and perform Subuh prayers before she died.
Mountain guide Nazaruddin Samat, 54, who was with the group of climbers involved, recalled that they performed Subuh prayers before Zahalita Othman, 52, went to clean herself up.
According to him, when Zahalita went back into the tent, she was found to be having breathing difficulties before another climber known as Anas Nabila went to her aid and helped to rub some ointment on her.
"At the time I approached Zahalita and felt her hand which was still warm and I informed Anas and another climber known as Hafiz to go and immediately get help.
"Hafiz and I moved to Gedung Camp to ask for help from the group that was ahead, while Anas was told to wait with Zahalita for a while on Gunung Reskit," he said when met here earlier today (Feb 11).
According to him, he and nine climbers including three women broke into two groups with six climbers moving towards Gedung Camp.
He said that he was with Zahalita, Anas, and Hafiz was with the second group about one kilometre (km) away or about 40 minutes out.
"On the way to Gedung camp, I did not feel good before I asked Hafiz to carry on in calling the climbers down as I turned back and headed to Gunung Reskit," he recalled.
He said that when they arrived back at Gunung Reskit, he saw Amas crying by Zahalita's side as Anas informed that she had already died.
"I checked if she had a pulse, but I could not manage to detect anything. Just to make sure, two other climbers also checked and they confirmed that she had died," he said.
Before this New Straits Times (NST) had reported that Zahalita and eight other climbers had taken part in an expedition to climb Gunung Tahan through the Kuala Tahan-Merapoh (K2M) passage on Feb 1 and were supposed to arrive in Merapoh last Thursday (Feb 8).
However Zahalita died at around 7.30am on Tuesday (Feb 6) from complications brought about by suspected breathing difficulties.
Zahalita's remains was airlifted out from Gunung Gedung by a Fire and Rescue Department helicopter on Thursday (Feb 8) at around 8.30am.
