Mountaineer accused of stepping over a dying man during her pursuit of a world record missed the chance to be a 'hero,' climber says

• A mountaineer has defended herself following accusations that she left a man to die on K2.
• Footage appeared to show Kristin Harila and her team stepping over a dying guide on the mountain.
• The footage was shot by Austrian climbers, one of whom told Insider Harila could've been a "hero."

An Austrian climber who filmed the mountaineer Kristin Harila and her team as they appeared to step over a dying man during their pursuit of a world record said the Norwegian climber missed the opportunity to be a hero.

Harila and her Nepali guide Tenjin "Lama" Sherpa became the fastest climbers to ascend all 14 of the world's peaks above 8,000 meters, or around 26,000 feet, after reaching the summit of K2 in Pakistan on July 27, according to Smithsonian Magazine.

But footage taken by Austrian climbing duo Wilhelm Steindl and Philip Flämig appeared to show Harila and her team stepping over the body of Mohammed Hassan, who was left critically injured after he fell from a narrow path known as the bottleneck, the BBC reported.

They said that Hassan, 27, was alive at the time Harila and her team passed by him on their ascent. He died later that day.

Harila had the chance to be a 'hero'

In an Instagram post last week, Harila said that she and a few others spent an hour and half helping Hassan before deciding "to continue forward as too many people in the bottleneck would make it more dangerous for a rescue."

But speaking to Insider, Steindl — who said he and Flämig were roughly 100 to 150 meters below where the incident took place — said the timeline of Harila's version of events was unlikely to be accurate.

"She helped this guy and she was there for hours, which is even not possible to be there for hours," he said. 

"All the people decided, 'but I want to reach the summit. Maybe I can help him when I come back down,'" he added. "In the end, she didn't start a rescue mission. She had the chance to be the hero, but she decided to go forward to the summit." 

Steindl also said that he was confident a rescue mission would've been launched if Hassan had been a Western climber. 

"For sure they would say, 'stop now. We need to bring him down right now,'" he said. 

Steindl, who has started a GoFundMe page to raise funds for Hassan's family members, said that he'd been in contact with Hassan's wife, who told him that her husband was doing "risky work to give them a better life" and to save for their children's education.

Harila fought back at the accusations in her Instagram post, saying Hassan's death was "no one's fault."

She added that the incident happened on "the most dangerous part of the deadliest mountain in the world" where "survival instincts impact the decisions you make."

Harila said she and her team were unaware that Hassan died until they were on their way back down, when they were "in no shape to carry his body down."