A 27-year-old Chinese man who was rescued on Japan’s Mt Fuji twice inside four days has angered emergency teams and locals, who are calling for him pay for his rescue.
The man, a university student living in Japan, first needed to be rescued when he complained of altitude sickness when in sight of Mt Fuji’s 3766m summit.
He told rescuers that he had lost climbing equipment and his mobile phone during the aborted climb.
Four days later, emergency rescue teams received a call from another climber informing them that a man had collapsed on the Fujinomiya trail and needed attention.
Guess who? It was the same man rescued four days earlier. A police mountaineering team found the man with minor injuries, which required him to be stretchered down the mountain.
The man told police he had attempted the ascent again in a bid to recover his mobile phone, lost four days earlier.
News sources reported that the police, the emergency rescue team and Japanese locals were not amused and called for the man to repay the costs of his twin rescues.
Some want him to ‘take a hike’ – but not on Mt Fuji.