Bone-chilling newly released footage captured the moment a Norwegian mountaineer and her team discovered a struggling porter hanging upside down — and ultimately left him to die on the infamous K2 in Pakistan.
Kristin Harila, 40, and fellow climbers discovered mountain guide Muhammad Hassan, 27, after he plummeted from a narrow ridge during their record-breaking climb in July 2023.
They were about 2,000 feet from the summit when they encountered the near-death father of three in the middle of the night.
Harrowing video shared in the new “Savage Mountain” documentary about Harila’s grueling climb shows Hassan hanging upside down by a rope as a climber slips while trying to secure an ice screw to get him to safety.
“We saw there was something wrong with the rope around his legs. He was naked on his stomach and his back,” Harila — who along with her Nepali guide Tenjen “Lama” Sherpa, who died in an avalanche on Mount Shishapangma in October 2023 — said in the film.
She said they tried tirelessly to save Hassan, but the conditions were incredibly dangerous. The group managed to secure him with a new rope.
Hassan was already in serious condition by the time the group discovered him, the documentary’s cameraman Gabriel Tarso said.
“He was completely frozen. No oxygen, no gloves, no down suit. I tried to warm him, to move his fingers, tried to give him hot water. Tried to give him comfort,” Tarso said.
At roughly 3:20 a.m., an avalanche struck part of the mountain where members of Harila’s team had already gone, she explained in the film.
She and Tenjen continued on, while Tarso stayed with Hassan — giving him an oxygen bottle — until another group member told Tarso to leave him behind because he was too far gone.
Hassan’s body was recovered about three days later.
Harila, considered the fastest climber of the world’s 14 highest peaks, was slammed with death threats in the climb’s aftermath because a viral video emerged of members of her team climbing over Hassan’s dead body.
She previously defended herself and her team, telling the Telegraph weeks later that they did everything they could to save him.
“It is simply not true to say that we did nothing to help him,” Harila said.
“We tried to lift him back up for an hour and a half and my cameraman stayed on for another hour to look after him. At no point was he left alone.”

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