How Altitude Sickness Kills You

High-altitude pulmonary edema, high-altitude cerebral edema are our greatest concerns and they're

not easy to diagnose. High-altitude pulmonary edema particularly, it's a continuum of brain swelling.

And this brain swelling is caused by a number of things. One thing is when your brain gets

hypoxic, it opens up the blood flow to the brain. And the way it kills

you is your brain is a walnut in a shell, right? The shell is your

skull. If it swells, it can only go so far. The only way to,

for your brain to get out of the shell is to go down through the bottom of your skull,

which is not compatible with life. That's high-altitude cerebral edema. Descent is the treatment